The BJP and the Shiv Sena have decided to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and Assembly polls in the state together, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced on Monday.
Fadnavis said that the BJP will contest 25 seats and the Shiv Sena in 23 seats. Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha seats.
This was announced at a joint press conference in Mumbai, in the presence of Amit Shah and Uddhav Thackeray.
Fadnavis said that the BJP and the Shiv Sena will contest equal number of seats in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly.
Meanwhile, Shah told the media that crores of BJP and Shiv Sena workers wanted the alliance between the two parties. “Sena is the oldest ally of BJP,” he said.
The leaders of both the parties expressed confidence that the BJP-Sena alliance will come to power in the state and that the NDA will come to power at the Centre.
PTI reported Thackeray as saying, “Ram temple has been the common thread for alliance between BJP and Shiv Sena, it has to be built at the earliest.”
Fadnavis said that the BJP was in full support of Sena’s demand for the Ram Temple.
PTI also reported Fadnavis as saying, “BJP and Sena are parties with national ideology which have come together in wider public interest. In principle, both the parties are pro-Hindutva.”
(With PTI inputs)