BMC elections: BJP-Sena seat talks drag on over numbers

Mumbai: Talks between the BJP and the Shiv Sena over a seat-sharing arrangement for the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections have hit a logjam, with the two allies unable to arrive at a consensus.

The BJP is seeking to contest more than 150 of the 227 civic seats, while the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena is pressing for 95-100 seats. The BJP, however, has offered the Sena only 55 seats, widening the gap between the partners.

At the core of the disagreement is the Shiv Sena's demand for additional seats to accommodate former corporators who defected from the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction after the party split. The Shinde faction has inducted close to 45 such corporators and wants to field all of them in the civic polls, along with its existing loyalists.


"In the 2017 BMC elections, our party had 87 corporators. After the split, several of them crossed over to us, and we have committed to give them tickets. Besides this, we also have our own loyal workers to accommodate," said a Shiv Sena leader familiar with the negotiations.

The BJP has rejected the Sena's demand for nearly 100 seats, arguing that the 2017 results cannot be the benchmark for negotiations as the Shiv Sena has since split, altering the political arithmetic.