Mumbai: Despite seat-sharing talks for this year’s Lok Sabha elections not being finalised yet, the ruling alliance in Maharashtra — comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — has decided to kickstart campaigning for the polls, with joint rallies scheduled to be held from 14 January.
At a joint press conference Wednesday, state cabinet minister Dadaji Bhuse, a member of the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, said the rallies in the districts would be attended by senior leaders of all three parties. The conference was also attended by BJP state chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule and state chief of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, Sunil Tatkare.
Hinting that many BJP leaders would join the campaign in the coming days, Bawankule said, “After that, there will be rallies at the divisional level. We will win more than 45 seats with 51 percent vote share. Once we are done with the seat distribution, we will have constituency-level programmes.” There are 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.
Tatakare stressed that the Lok Sabha elections would be fought under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that 14 January would see the first of the many joint rallies in the run-up to the 2024 general elections. Bhuse also reposed faith in Modi and said leaders would take central and state schemes to the people.
All three leaders said the seat distribution was up to the central leadership to decide and would be accepted by all.
“There is no issue regarding the seat sharing. One or two seats here and there does not matter. The central leadership will take the final call. There is no conflict,” said Bawankule.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)