The Shiv Sena and BJP announced an alliance between the two parties for the Lok Sabha as well as Assembly elections on Monday.
The BJP will contest 25 seats and Shiv Sena 23 of 48 Sabha seats in Maharashtra. The two parties will contest the equal number of seats, along with their other allies, in elections for the 288-member state Assembly, due this year.
In a joint press conference with BJP chief Amit Shah and Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said public sentiment was that the two parties should come together.
The BJP and Sena alliance will win at least 45 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, Shah said.
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Crores of workers of BJP and Shiv Sena wanted the alliance between the two parties, Shah said. The Sena is the oldest ally of BJP, he added.
The Ram temple has been the common thread for an alliance between BJP and Shiv Sena, Thackeray said. It has to be built at the earliest, he added.
BJP and Sena are parties with the national ideology which have come together in wider public interest, Fadnavis said. In principle, both the parties are pro-Hindutva, he added.
Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha seats.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the two parties along with their allies had won 42 out of the 48 seats. The BJP had bagged 23 seats, while the Shiv Sena had emerged victorious in 18 constituencies.
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The two parties had contested the October 2014 Maharashtra Assembly election separately and came together to form a government in a post-poll arrangement.
(With inputs from PTI)
