Amit Shah in firefighting mode to douse dissent within Mahayuti

Mumbai: Amid growing differences, jibes and one-upmanship among the Mahayuti allies, BJP’s chief strategist and Union Home Minister Amit Shah held back-to-back meetings during his whirlwind tour and assured a respectful seat-sharing formula in the run up to the Vidhan Sabha polls.

The seat-sharing has emerged as a major issue between BJP and its two big allies Shiv Sena and NCP for elections to the 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, likely to be held around mid-November.

For Mumbai-born Shah, the close aide of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a visit to the financial capital during the Ganeshotsav is ritual.

On Sunday after his arrival, Shah was received by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and later presided over the documentary release of 200-year journey of Gujarati daily ‘Mumbai Samachar’, Asia’s oldest newspaper, which is now in 203rd year of publication.

Later, he chaired a meeting of top BJP leaders in which Fadnavis, Maharashtra BJP President Chandrashekhar Bawankule, his Mumbai counterpart Ashish Shelar among others were present.

In the meeting, the BJP leaders said to have Shah impressed upon to contest 150-170 seats with a target of winning 125-plus seats. Shah also held a meeting with Shinde and Fadnavis after this, which went past midnight.

Pawar, who was in Baramati, too returned to Mumbai late in the night.

On Monday, Shah went to Varsha, the official residence of Shinde and Sagar and the official residence of Fadnavis to offer prayers to Lord Ganesha. He also visited Lalbaugcha Raja and then to the home of Shelar in Bandra before heading for the Mumbai airport.

Before flying back to New Delhi, Shah held meetings of the trio of Shinde-Fadnavis-Pawar, who run the tri-party coalition along with top Mahayuti leadership.

During the 40-minute meeting, Shah said that the Mahayuti would work out a formula which would be respectful for all, however, winnability and elective merit would be the criteria for distribution of tickets.