Maharashtra Polls: Even On Last Day Of Nomination Filing, Uncertainty Over Seat-Sharing In Mahayuti And Maha Vikas Aghadi

Even on the last day for nomination filing, there is uncertainty surrounding the seat allocations for both the ruling alliance and the opposition for the Maharashtra assembly elections.

Decisions on seven seats within the ruling coalition Mahayuti of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) remain pending.

The situation on the opposition front, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), is even murkier. Despite weeks of publicised discussions over seat-sharing, the alliance has yet to finalise its distribution.

The candidate declaration has surpassed the 85-85-85 arrangement but 16 seats are still undecided. Other allies, including Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, await their turn in the coalition's framework.

In Mahayuti, the BJP, which initially planned to contest 150 seats, has now settled on 146, allotting four seats to smaller allies like the Yuva Swabhiman Party, Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, Republican Party of India (Athavale), and Jan Surajya Shakti Paksha.

This leaves Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's NCP faction with 138 seats. The Shinde-led Shiv Sena, initially announcing 65 candidates, added 15 more, bringing its total to 80 seats, with two designated for smaller parties.

One seat each is for Jan Suraj Party and Rajashri Shahuprakash Aghadi. Out of the 58 seats expected for Ajit Pawar's NCP, 51 candidates have been declared.

In the MVA, the Congress has named 103 candidates, Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction 87, and Sharad Pawar's NCP faction 82—accounting for 272 of Maharashtra’s 288 seats.

This delay and indecision reflect the high stakes of this election, anticipated as a litmus test for the state’s political landscape after years of upheaval as both Shiv Sena and NCP split in the last couple of years.