Shiv Sena (UBT) announces candidates on 16 seats in Maharashtra, MVA's full list yet to come

Uddhav Thackeray's party Shiv Sena (UBT) released its list of candidates 16 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra on Wednesday morning, March 27. Though Maha Vikas Aghadi's full list for all 48 seats is yet to be announced,  the UBT list indicates that the seat-sharing formula of the alliance is almost finalised.

As per the list, the MPs who stood with Thackeray during the rebellion by Eknath Shinde are rewarded. The list has names of sitting MPs Arvind Sawant, Rajan Vichare, Sanjay Jadhav, Vinayak Raut in it. Sawant will contest from South Bombay, Vichare from Thane, Jadhav from Parbhani, and Raut from Sindhudurg-Ratnagiri - the constituencies they currently represent.

The list shows that UBT got a good share in MVA's overall seat sharing dynamics in the state.

In 2019, BJP and Shiv Sena (united) were in an alliance and won 23 and 18 seats respectively. The alliance dynamic has changed due to a split in Shiv Sena, followed by a split in the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

The final seat-sharing formula of MVA is yet to be announced. The MVA leaders claimed that it was almost final. Shiv Sena will get 22, Congress will get 16 and NCP will get 10 seats. Though NCP and UBT leaders claimed that the seat-sharing talks were going smoothly, sources claimed that the talk hit a roadblock over the Sangli and Bhiwandi seats. Congress is not ready to give up these seats and has claimed that these seats are traditionally party seats and they have winnable candidates in these constituencies.

Thackeray announced his candidate Chandrahar Patil from Sangli and NCP wants the Bhiwandi seats.

Also, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has released the first list of candidates and more names will be announced by March 28.