Amit Shah likely to hold meeting on Thursday on BJP-Shiv Sena Maharashtra Assembly election alliance

Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday confirmed that BJP and Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena will contest the Assembly election together as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) once again.

File Photo (Courtesy: ANI)

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah is likely to hold a meeting in New Delhi on Thursday on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena alliance for the upcoming Assembly election in Maharashtra. 

Sources inform that Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and the state core committee leaders might also attend the meeting, in which a significant decision is expected to take place.

BJP and Shiv Sena pre-poll alliance for the Assembly election is yet to be announced. 

There was no clarity over a pre-poll alliance between the two parties even after the dates of the Assembly election was announced on Saturday. However, four days later, Fadnavis, putting all speculations to rest, confirmed that BJP and Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena will contest the Assembly election together as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) once again.

He said that BJP and Shiv Sena will form an alliance keeping aside all differences to contest the Assembly election. 

Earlier this week, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said that the sharing of seats between his party and the BJP was a much bigger exercise than India-Pakistan partition.

"Maharashtra is a big state. The sharing of 288 seats is a bigger exercise than India-Pakistan partition. Had we sat in Opposition instead of being in government the picture today would have been different," Raut had said, news ANI reported.

Maharashtra will go to polls on October 21 and the counting of votes will take place on October 24.

As of now, the BJP and the Shiv Sena have 122 and 63 seats, respectively, in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly. 

The two parties had fought the 2014 Assembly election separately. And, in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, BJP and Shiv Sena contested as allies and had won 41 out of the 48 seats.