In what could be another deadlock for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A) bloc and a headache for the Congress, the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) on Friday said that it is going to contest 23 out of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra in 2024. In the 2019 Lok Sabha Election, when the BJP and the Shiv Sena were in alliance, the former contested 25 seats and the latter fielded its candidates from the remaining 23 seats in the state. The BJP won 23 and the Shiv Sena got 18 seats respectively.
Meanwhile, the Congress said its candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls will be decided "very soon" and asserted that it would take all necessary steps to make the I.N.D.I.A bloc an effective bulwark against the ruling BJP and its allies. On the issue of seat sharing among the I.N.D.I.A bloc partners, Congress said that it has already constituted an alliance committee and it has been given a clear direction by the party chief that discussions on alliances have to start this month itself.
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Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on the seat-sharing issue said, "We discussed with Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and other leaders from Maharashtra on this. Further discussion will be held in New Delhi."
According to reports, other bloc partners, Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and Trinamool Congress in West Bengal have also said that they would stick to their traditional seats in the Lok Sabha elections.
