india

Updated: Sep 19, 2019 15:36 IST

Back in Maharashtra on his second visit in a fortnight, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday told a public meeting that his government’s performance in the first 100 days - he called it his century - reflects the new approach to build new India and the capacity to meet challenges head on.

“In our first century, there is enthusiasm for development and messages India’s growing global power,” PM Modi said at a public rally in north Maharashtra’s Nashik. PM Modi started out his speech showering praise at Devendra Fadnavis who is completing five years in the state’s top seat and is leading the BJP’s election campaign for his party’s return.

PM Modi, who took potshots at the Nationalist Congress Party and Congress alliance government, credited Fadnavis with delivering a stable government

The event marks the conclusion of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s statewide tour Mahajanadesh Yatra that covered over 4,000 km and 150 assembly constituencies and reflects the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s hard push for the state elections.

Elections to Maharashtra’s 288 assembly seats, expected to be held in late October, are expected to be formally announced over the next few days. The BJP will be contesting the election in alliance with the Shiv Sena, its oldest partner in the NDA, but the two allies are yet to iron out the creases in negotiations over the seat sharing formula.

The Shiv Sena and the BJP have kept aside 18 seats for their smaller allies but a tug-of-war is still on for the remaining 270-odd seats. The BJP, which had contested the 2014 state elections on its own and emerged as the largest party, is determined to pick up for a larger share. But the Sena is insisting that the seats be split equally between the two parties.

As the negotiations enter into the last lap, more than one sena leader has warned that the alliance might end if the BJP does not agree to the 50:50 formula for sharing seats. BJP leaders, however, indicate that the Shiv Sena go that far. They point to Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray statement at an event, where he in the presence of PM Modi earlier this month, underscored: “The alliance is inevitable. Our alliance will come to power again after the elections”.