NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: BJP will contest 162 seats and the Shiv Sena 126, according to the seat-sharing formula for the October 21 assembly elections finalized by the alliance partners on Monday. TOI was the first to report these numbers on September 20.

The BJP will give seats from its own quota to smaller allies such as the RPI (Athavale group), the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, Shiv Sangram and Rayat Kranti, it is learnt.

This means the Sena’s insistence on a 50-50 formula, with the two saffron partners getting 144 seats each of the total 288, has been junked, and its junking has been accepted by Uddhav Thackeray’s party.

The saffron allies had contested the 2014 state polls separately, with the BJP winning 122 seats and the Sena 63. However, the Sena, after having been part of the Devendra Fadnavis government in the state, bargained hard for parity. The BJP though has kept the senior partner tag it snatched from the Sena in 2014, in the wake of its thumping win in this year’s Lok Sabha polls and the nullifying of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.

Sources said the Sena’s quota includes seats such as Mankhurd, Mulund, Byculla, Mumbadevi, Malegaon, Bhiwandi and perhaps Aurangabad Central, which are supposed to be tough to win for the saffron allies given the large concentration of the minority communities in these areas.

Earlier in the evening, the BJP and Sena issued a joint press statement formally announcing the alliance, though no official declaration of the seat-sharing formula was made. The joint statement was signed by state BJP president Chandrakant Patil and senior Sena minister Subhash Desai. The seat-sharing formula will be announced “at the earliest,” the statement said.

The cryptic, semi-bureaucratic tone of the Patil-Desai communique was in sharp contrast with the fanfare of the 1990s, when Balasaheb Thackeray and Pramod Mahajan would announce a joint list of candidates at a press conference with elan, and peppered with the Sena patriarch’s stunning one-liners, observers said.

Sources in the BJP said the ongoing delay in okaying the final list was a deliberate move by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to leave little time and scope for rebels to play their cards. BJP-Sena strategists are worried that a formal announcement of party candidates in advance may trigger rebellion and even defections.

Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray held parleys with senior party colleagues at Matoshree amid talk that the BJP would not accept Matoshree’s 50-50 seat-sharing formula.

Fadnavis was in New Delhi for two days to consult the BJP high command on the alliance with the Sena and the final list of party candidates. He attended the BJP’s Parliamentary board meeting with a couple of state BJP leaders in tow.

The BJP is reportedly ready to offer the deputy CM’s post to Aaditya Thackeray in a bid to assuage the Sena, which is finding it tough to accept its No. 2 position in the alliance, sources said. Sources added that the BJP may compensate the Sena by giving it two or three seats in the legislative council. “In the 1990s, the BJP would be pleading with Balasaheb for more seats. Twenty years later, it’s the Sena which is at the BJP’s mercy,” said a Sena veteran.

Aaditya Thackeray will contest from Worli, the central Mumbai fiefdom of Sachin Ahir who recently snapped ties with the NCP to join the Sena. Ahir is likely to be given a berth in the state legislative council next year, it is learnt.

The joint BJP-Sena statement said, “In the last five years, the Mahayuti worked together under the leadership of Devendra Fadnavis and the guidance of Uddhav Thackeray and is now once again going in for another state election. Through joint discussions, Thackeray, Fadnavis and other leaders of the allied parties have unanimously decided to have an alliance. Thus, the Mahayuti is being announced.”

At the BJP state headquarters, Patil said the list of candidates will be announced in New Delhi, and the forms A and B for nominations have already been sent to homes of candidates.

