The ongoing wrangling and speculation over Maharashtra's Kalyan Lok Sabha seat has finally ended after the Bharatiya Janata Party announced on Saturday that it will concede the seat to its ally Shiv Sena. The news was confirmed by Deputy CM & BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis who stated that Ekanth Shinde's son Shrikant Shinde, who is currently representing the seat, will contest the Kalyan seat in Maharashtra in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
“The BJP is not opposed to Shrikant Shinde’s candidature from Kalyan. He will be the joint candidate of our alliance. The BJP will stand strongly behind him. We would ensure that Shrikant would be elected by an even bigger margin from Kalyan than in previous years.” a report by The Economic Times quoted Fadnavis as saying.
The development came in days after the two parties were negotiating for the Kalyan seat. Earlier, BJP was seeking the seat for itself, claiming that it had more MLAs in Kalyan as compared to Shiv Sena. As per the report, there were also rumbling among the local leadership of the BJP in Kalyan, who are loyal to imprisoned BJP MLA Ganpat Gaikwad, indicating that they would refrain from campaigning for Shrikant Shinde if he were nominated from Kalyan.
The BJP MLA is in jail after he shot at a local Shiv Sena leader who was considered very close to Shrikant Shinde over a dispute related to property and politics.
While the Kalyan seat has been resolved there are other seats including the Thane Lok Sabha seat, where the BJP and Shiv Sena have still locked horns. The saffron party wants the seat from Shiv Sena and the latter does not want to give it as CM Eknath Shinde stringhold, the report stated.