Maharashtra assembly elections 2024: Consensus arrived on 70-80% of seats in NDA, Maha BJP chief gives big update

Chandrashekhar Bawankule, chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) Maharashtra unit, on Monday said that the ruling Mahayuti alliance has arrived at a consensus on contesting 70 to 80 per cent of the 288 seats for the upcoming assembly elections. The ruling Mahayuti alliance comprises the BJP, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). 

Bawankule said that winnability will be the main criterion for distributing poll tickets. While replying to a query on the NCP purportedly staking claim to 70-80 seats, the Maharashtra BJP chief said that Eknath Shinde, Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar should be congratulated for vowing to win elections unitedly. 

"The three leaders of Mahayuti should be congratulated for vowing to win elections unitedly instead of quoting numbers. We will agree upon fielding winnable candidates," Bawankule told reporters. 

Winning the elections unitedly is the NDA's best bet in Maharashtra, especially given the recent Lok Sabha polls drubbing. For the BJP, half of its 114 weak seats are in Western Maharashtra, where NCP-Ajit will take the lead, and in Marathwada, which will be divided among the 3 Mahayuti partners.  

Half of NCP's 186 weak seats are in Vidarbha and Mumbai. It will have to leave Mumbai for the BJP and the Shinde Sena and Vidarbha for the BJP. Over half of Shiv Sena's 163 weak seats are in Western Maharashtra and Vidarbha, where it will have to let the NCP and the BJP take the lead. 

Maharashtra will be the NDA's real challenge after the Lok Sabha elections. In the Lok Sabha elections 2024, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won 30 out of the 48 seats whereas the Mahayuti won just 17 seats.

In terms of leads in Assembly segments, the MVA bloc led on 153 seats -- Congress in 62 seats, Shiv Sena (UBT) in 57 and NCP-SP in 33 seats. The Mahayuti, on the other hand, led on 126 seats -- BJP in 79 seats, Shiv Sena in 40, NCP-AP on 6 seats and the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha on one seat. 

This was a massive reduction in the NDA's tally compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In 2019, the NDA won 43 out of the 48 seats from Maharashtra whereas the UPA bagged just 5 seats in the state. 

The Maharashtra Assembly has a total of 288 seats, with the simple majority mark being at 145 seats.