Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has pressed for a swift finalization of seat distribution within the ruling Mahayuti alliance ahead of the Assembly polls, stressing the need to avoid last-minute decisions like those experienced in the Lok Sabha elections. During his meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah, Ajit Pawar demanded 80–90 seats for the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
Ajit Pawar insisted on securing the 54 seats that the combined NCP won in the 2019 Assembly polls. Additionally, he is aiming for 20 seats against Congress in regions such as western Maharashtra, Marathwada, and Northern Maharashtra (Khandesh). He also expressed interest in contesting 4–5 seats in Mumbai, particularly those dominated by the minority community, against Congress. Furthermore, sources indicate that Ajit Pawar is confident of securing three independent MLAs and three Congress MLAs to run under his party's banner.
Senior BJP leaders, including Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, arrived in Delhi early in the morning for a meeting with the party's central leadership, underscoring the heightened activity as seat-sharing talks intensify.
Ajit Pawar's meeting with Amit Shah follows criticism from an RSS-affiliated weekly, which blamed the NCP's alliance with the BJP for their poor performance in the Maharashtra Lok Sabha polls. Adding to Ajit Pawar's challenges, 28 NCP leaders from Pune, including the city president of the Pimpri-Chinchwad unit, left the party to join the NCP (SP).
In the recent Lok Sabha polls, the BJP secured only 9 of the 28 seats it contested, a significant drop from the 23 seats won in 2019. The Ajit Pawar-led NCP won just one seat, Raigad, while the Sharad Pawar faction secured eight seats.
Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde aims to contest 100 seats, while the BJP has set a target of 160 to 170 seats. The challenge now lies in how the three major components of the Mahayuti alliance will accommodate each other across the 288 Assembly seats.
