Sena-BJP talks on poll seats face fresh trouble

IANS/Mumbai

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray yesterday rejected the Bharatiya Janata Party’s demand to contest 135 seats in the Maharashtra assembly elections, aggravating the seat-sharing crisis between the allies.

Toughening his stance, Thackeray hinted at the possibility of snapping the alliance with the BJP and contesting the elections on its own, saying “there is an alternative to everything.”

“The BJP offered a proposal to contest 135 seats and I have rejected it... There is an alternative to everything... I have made it clear that we cannot go beyond a point,” a grim Thackeray said.

However, he said seat-sharing talks were still on and he would not say anything negative about the 25-year-old alliance until a final decision was reached ahead of the October 15 elections.

Thackeray’s assertion came in the wake of his statement two days ago that the next Maharashtra chief minister would be from his party if the Sena-BJP alliance bagged power.

Over the past one month, talks have been stuck over the number of seats to be contested by the BJP and the Shiv Sena.

In 2009, the Shiv Sena contested 169 seats and the BJP 119 in the 288-member assembly.

This time, buoyed by the Lok Sabha victory, the BJP demanded 144 seats before scaling it down to 135.

BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Sunday said that after allotting 18 seats to smaller allies like the Republican Party of India (A) and Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, the BJP-SS should contest 135 seats each.

Thackeray countered by saying that if the BJP feels the party with more elected legislators should get the post of chief minister, it should remember the late Bal Thackeray’s formula by which it was decided the Sena will contest 171 seats and the BJP 117. Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena criticised Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan by saying that a clerk in the secretariat has more experience than him about governance.

The party slammed Chavan for his objection to Thackeray’s name being propped up for the post of chief minister on grounds that “he (Thackeray) lacks experience.”