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This is an archive article published on March 19, 2023

After Chandrashekhar Bawankule’s flip-flop on seat-sharing, Shinde Sena says ‘all’s well with BJP’

Bawankule first said that the BJP would contest nearly 250 Assembly seats in the 2024 elections and the Shiv Sena-Shinde faction will contest 48 seats.

BJP shiv sena seatsMaharashtra BJP chief Chandrasekhar Bawankule. (Twitter/@cbawankule)
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After Chandrashekhar Bawankule’s flip-flop on seat-sharing, Shinde Sena says ‘all’s well with BJP’
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A day after Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule sparked a row between his party and its partner Shiv Sena, led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, by saying the BJP will contest a majority of the seats in the Assembly polls, the Shinde group downplayed the comments and denied that any bitterness has cropped up between the parties.

“There is no quarrel between us… When elections are near, leaders of both BJP and our group will decide about seat-sharing,” Naresh Mhaske, the spokesperson for Shinde Sena, told The Indian Express on Sunday.

Bawankule first said that the BJP would contest nearly 250 Assembly seats in the 2024 elections and the Shiv Sena-Shinde faction will contest 48 seats. However, he later clarified that he made the statement so that the party rank and file could be ready for the polls.

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“If we have to win elections, we should be in a position to contest from all seats and win them. The statement was made in this context. Anyway, the seat-sharing between the two parties will be decided by the state leadership and the central leadership…,” Bawankule said, in an attempt to defuse the tension.

Asked whether the Shinde faction was firm on contesting 130-140 seats as claimed by its leaders, Mhaske reiterated that the seat-sharing formula was not finalised and it will be done during the time of elections.

“Bawankule has already clarified. He himself said that seat-sharing will be decided by the state and central leadership of the two parties. Our stand is similar. We will get seats that we had won. Besides, we will get seats as per our agreement during the seat-sharing talks. I would like to emphasise that there is no fight between us. We will sort out all the issues through discussions,” he said.

Shinde Sena leaders had openly expressed their anger after Bawankule’s statement. MLA Sanjay Gaikwad said the BJP leadership should reprimand him. “Bawankule’s statement has no meaning. The Shiv Sena’s alliance has been decided by top leaders of the party, not leaders like Bawanluke,” he said.

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Sanjay Shirsat, another leader of the Shinde faction, said, “The seat-sharing formula is not decided just like that. For this, proper discussions are held as to who should contest which seat and which one should be left for alliance partners. It is decided after proper discussion. After this, it is announced at a press conference… I think Bawankule made the statement due to overenthusiasm and to keep party cadres in good humour… One should be careful about giving statements. The statement should not put one’s own party and alliance partners in a difficult situation.”

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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