Letter to BS: Small parties may join 'secular' bandwagon in Maharashtra

If the demands of all these parties are to be met, how many seats will be left for the two main contenders to fight from?

In Maharashtra, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have decided to contest together for the Lok Sabha polls of 2019. Before they could finalise the exact distribution of the 48 seats in the state, smaller like-minded parties have shown interest in joining the “secular” bandwagon. They are the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghtana, the Shiv Sangram Sena, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh party. The last one has asked for 12 seats. If the demands of all these parties are to be met, how many seats will be left for