Alliance talks progress, but no consensus yet

Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday demanded 50 per cent of seats in the civic body during alliance talks with the Shiv Sena.

The Sena, however, did not approve of the demand and decided to continue the talks in the coming days. In the next meeting, the two parties will bring their lists of seats to be discussed. BJP state president Raosaheb Danve, Mumbai president Ashish Shelar and state education minister Vinod Tawde were present for the meeting at Mr Danve’s bungalow at Nariman Point while Sena MP Anil Desai, MLC Anil Parab and Ravindra Mirlekar were also in attendance.

The sources in the Sena said Mr Shelar demanded 50 per cent of seats from the Sena for the BMC, which the Sena leaders refused. The leaders from both sides then decided to talk later. The Sena had contested 150 seats last time and gave 20 to the Republican Party of India (RPI).

After the meeting, Mr Desai said the talks were positive. “We took a primary review of seats from Mulund to Dahisar. We will exchange the lists of winning seats of each party. We will talk about it in a meeting. Sena chief Uddhavji Thackeray and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will take the final decision,” Mr Desai said.

Mr Shelar said that Mr Thackeray and Mr Fadnavis had discussed transparency in the BMC functioning. “We had a primary discussion on seats from Mulund to Dahisar. Both parties will soon come up with the list of winning seats. The final decision will be taken on January 21,” Mr Shelar said. BJP sources said the party is looking for more seats in the suburbs where it traditionally has Gujarati and Marathi upper castes voters.