Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena on Monday finalized the alliance and seat-sharing agreement for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP will contest on 25 seats while the Shiv Sena will fight on 23 seats out of the total 48 seats in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced at a joint press conference with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and BJP president Amit Shah here last evening.
“We [the BJP and the Shiv Sena] share same ideology, we have been in alliance for last 25 years. Both the parties want Ram mandir. People want us to come together,” Devendra Fadnavis said.
The Chief Minister also stated that seat-sharing arrangement for assembly elections scheduled later this year will be finalized post discussions with smaller parties that are part of the NDA alliance.
On his part Shah expressed confidence that Shiv Sena-BJP alliance will win minimum 45 seats out of the total 48 seats.
In the last Lok Sabha polls, the NDA alliance had won 42 seats in Maharashtra.
The development has come over a month after Amit Shah warned its allies that the BJP will crush them in the Lok Sabha polls if no alliance happens.
Ms Kalinga