The assembly election in Maharashtra this year has gone off script, with no clarity on which party is contesting how many seats in the ruling alliance or the opposition front. On the eve of the last day of filing of nominations, decision on nine seats in the ruling alliance is yet to be announced. The image on the other side is even more blurred.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi, which made headlines for weeks over its tussle over seat sharing, is yet to provide a final frame. The alliance has already gone past the 85-85-95 seat sharing and announced disparate number of seats. Even so, there has been no announcement on 16 seats, while its other allies, including Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, wait in the wings.
In the ruling alliance, the BJP, which initially said it would contest on 150 seats, announced that they would contest on 146, leaving four seats for smaller allies -- the Yuva Swabhiman Party, Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, Republican Party of India (Athavale) and Jan Surajya Shakti Paksha. But two of its members have made an appearance on the list of the Shiv Sena of Eknath Shinde -- party spokesperson Shaina NC from Mumbadevi and Amol Khatal, who is the candidate for Sangamner. That leaves 138 seats to the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party's Ajit Pawar faction.
The Shinde faction, which earlier announced 65 candidates, announced 15 more tonight, including Shaina NC, taking its total to 80. Like the BJP, the Sena has also given two seats out of its share to smaller parti.