Seat-sharing talks between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena were threatening to go off track after Uddhav Thackeray on Monday declared that the Metro 3 car shed project at Aarey colony will meet the same fate as the Nanar oil refinery project, which the Maharashtra government scrapped a few months ago.
The statement came on a day the BJP’s national joint secretary V. Satish attended the final leg of the party’s seat-sharing talks with the Shiv Sena in the city, while Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis confirmed talks were in the last stages already. “We are in continuous talks; we will soon take a decision on our seat-sharing arrangement,” Mr. Fadnavis said.
The wedge between Mr. Thackeray and Mr Fadnavis over the proposed refinery at Nanar in Sindhudurg at one point got so deep that the Sena chief had publicly announced that the notification to acquire 16,000 hectares for the project stood cancelled. The CM later announced that Sena minister Subhash Desai, who heads the Industries Department, had no power to withdraw the notification for land acquisition.
On Monday, a BJP leader said, “We are disappointed with the statement, since so far, the Sena has been playing a balancing role while opposing the (Aarey) project. But with this statement (Mr. Thackeray’s), they have made their position clear.”
Mr. Thackeray’s statement comes in the wake of continuous pressure from activists and political opponents who have alleged doublespeak in the senior and junior (Aaditya) Thackerays’ stand on the project. Mr. Fadnavis, on the other hand, has claimed that Aarey is not a forest and his government will ensure the Metro Bhavan is constructed at the proposed site.
BJP leaders said that as per the final round of talks, the BJP will likely propose 155-157 seats as its share, while asking Sena to take 115-117 seats and leaving around 18 seats for splinter groups who are part of the alliance.
The new formula is not different from the promised 50:50 seat-sharing agreement arrived at by both parties before the Lok Sabha polls and it leaves room for negotiating over 20 to 25 seats on either side, leaders said. “From our side, this is the final number, considering many factors such as the wave in favour of the party post abrogation of Article 370,” a senior BJP leader said.
