Ajit Pawar Seeks 80–90 Seats for NCP in Mahayuti Alliance Ahead of Assembly Polls
Mumbai, 26th July 2024: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has requested 80–90 seats for the NCP in his meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah, as the seat-sharing discussions within the ruling Mahayuti alliance intensify ahead of the Assembly elections.
Ajit Pawar urged Amit Shah to finalize the seat allocation swiftly, avoiding last-minute decisions as seen during the Lok Sabha elections.
Sources indicate that Ajit Pawar is resolute about contesting the 54 seats that the NCP secured in the 2019 Assembly elections. Additionally, he aims to compete for 20 seats against Congress in regions including western Maharashtra, Marathwada, and Northern Maharashtra (Khandesh).
The Deputy Chief Minister is also interested in contesting 4–5 seats in Mumbai, predominantly minority community areas, against Congress.
Sources further reveal that Ajit Pawar is confident of convincing three independent MLAs and three Congress MLAs to join his party.
Senior BJP leaders, including Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, also arrived in Delhi for discussions with the party’s central leadership.
Ajit Pawar’s meeting with Amit Shah follows criticism from an RSS-affiliated weekly, which blamed the NCP’s alliance with BJP for its poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra.
Complicating matters for Ajit Pawar, 28 NCP leaders from Pune, including the city president of the Pimpri-Chinchwad unit, resigned from the party to join the NCP (SP).
In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP managed to win only 9 out of the 28 seats it contested, a decrease from the 23 seats it won in 2019. The Ajit Pawar-led NCP won just one seat, Raigad, while the Sharad Pawar faction secured eight.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction is aiming to contest 100 seats, while the BJP has set a target of 160 to 170 seats.
How the three major components of the Mahayuti alliance will accommodate each other within the 288 Assembly seats remains to be seen.
