Mahayuti seat-sharing: Sitting MPs dropped under ‘BJP pressure’, discontent brews in Shinde Sena

So far, the Shinde-led Sena had to drop at least three sitting MPs — Krupal Tumane from Ramtek, Bhawana Gawali from Washim-Yavatmal and Hemant Patil from Hingoli.

According to party insiders, there is further pressure from the BJP to drop at least two more candidates — Gajanan Kirtikar from Mumbai North West and Hemant Godse from Nashik — as well as cede some of its traditional seats like Thane, Palghar, Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg and Nashik to the BJP and NCP.

The development, according to party functionaries, have created unrest among party leaders, MPs and MLAs as they fear an erosion in their future prospects in the party.

A party functionary said that several party leaders and candidates who have been replaced or are going to be replaced have conveyed their displeasure to Shinde and have urged him not to give away the existing constituencies to the alliance partners.

In a damage control move, Shinde too has appealed to candidates to not take any step in a hurry and assured to rehabilitate candidates who were dropped from nomination.

So far the Shiv Sena has declared a total of nine candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.

In 2019, in an alliance with the BJP, the undivided Shiv Sena had contested on 23 seats and won 18. However, after the split in the party, 13 out of the 18 MPs switched to the Sena. The party has since been demanding a similar share in the seat sharing arrangement with the BJP but has so far declared only nine names owing to apparent pressure from the BJP.

Taking a swipe at the Shinde-led Sena, Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar said the situation in the Shinde-led Sena is volatile and they have lost all options. “It’s a situation like, ‘Na ghar ka na ghat ka’ for the Shinde-led Sena. The Sena MPs and MLAs revolted against Uddhav Thackeray. But now everyone can see that they are not even getting tickets to contest the polls. There is great uneasiness among the MLAs of the Shinde group. There is talk that half of their MLAs are in touch with Uddhav,” Wadettiwar said.