SCOOP: Maharashtra allies Congress-NCP to fight on 26-22 seats respectively against BJP-Shiv Sena, say sources

The Congress-NCP coalition in Maharashtra has consolidated their final seat-sharing formula, with Congress contending on 26 seats and NCP on 22 seats, according to sources.

Out of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, the Congress-NCP alliance will fight on 26 and 22 seats respectively, and both of them are known to leave 2 seats each from their quota for their allies. 

Congress is known to leave 1 seat for Hitendra Thakur's party Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) and is likely to leave the Sangali seat for Raju Shetty of Swabhimani Paksha (SP) after their demand for 2 seats. 

Meanwhile, NCP will leave its seat for Raju Shetty's party and Independent Ravi Rana. 

The decision on the Sangali seat will be taken in the Gatbandhan meeting which is scheduled to be held at 2 pm on Saturday. 

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Prior to the Modi wave in 2014, Maharashtra was a citadel of Congress-NCP, however, the political power was shifted to the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, who continue to maintain their coalition in Lok Sabha 2019 despite friction. 

Having an acknowledgment of the ground-reality, Pawar attempted to stitch a grand alliance of like-minded parties, however, failed to do so after Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Prakash Ambedkar's party, MIM and other smaller parties refused to be a part of the mahagathabandhan.

Prakash Ambedkar and MIM will be contesting in an alliance, which is likely to dent Congress-NCP's Muslim and Dalit vote bank. Similarly, the SP-BSP alliance might dent the NCP-Congress vote-bank with BSP's strong presence in Vidharbha region and SP's hold on Muslim pockets.  

BJP and Shiv Sena announced their pre-poll alliance in February with a consensus on the seat-sharing for Maharashtra Lok Sabha polls. The two parties will fight in an equal number of seats when it comes to the state elections. As for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the BJP will contest from 25 seats and Shiv Sena will contest from 23 seats, both parties had announced.

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Meanwhile, Maharashtra is all set to go into polls in four phases beginning from April 11 - Mumbai will be casting their votes in 4th phase of Lok Sabha 2019 elections on April 29.