BJP likely to contest 150 seats, mostly in Vidarbha, North Maharashtra

New Delhi: Ahead of the Maharashtra assembly elections, the BJP leaders got into a huddle on Monday to shortlist the candidates for the polls as discussions were held on about 100 assembly seats where the party has current MLAs, sources said.

The meeting was attended by the Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, BJP's state unit chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Union minister Piyush Goyal and other state leaders.

The meeting was held in the presence of BJP president JP Nadda and Union home minister Amit Shah. The BJP is likely to contest around 150 assembly seats with most of the seats lying in Vidarbha and North Maharashtra regions while in Konkan and Mumbai Metropolitan Region, it will share seats with Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena. The NCP led by Ajit Pawar is expected to contest on most of the assembly seats in the Western Maharashtra region while Maharashtra Shinde-led Shiv Sena would contest on seats falling in Mumbai-Thane and Marathwada region along with the Konkan belt of the state.


The BJP leaders are again likely to meet on Wednesday to finalise the candidates. PM Narendra Modi is also expected to attend the meeting on Wednesday.

BJP leaders said that the seat sharing with allies has been finalised on more than 90% of the 288 assembly seat.