Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Sunday said that the party will look to contest the upcoming legislative assembly elections in Maharashtra from 135 of the total 288 seats.
Speaking at a press conference here, Rudy said, "The BJP has full faith in all of its allies. We have proposed that the seats remaining after allotting the share of seats to smaller alliance partners be divided equally between BJP and Shiv Sena. We hope to finalise the seat sharing before party president Amit Shah's visit to Pune on September 18."
"In the last legislative assembly elections in 2009, the BJP contested from 119 seats, while the Shiv Sena contested from 169 seats. This time, leaving aside the share of seats of smaller alliance partners, we are left with around 270 seats, of which BJP will be looking to contest from 135," Rudy added.
The Maharashtra state assembly elections are scheduled to be held on October 15, with the counting of the votes to take place on October 19.