MUMBAI: After intense bargaining, the Mahayuti constituents finalised their seat-sharing arrangement for 17 legislative council seats just before the last day for filing nominations. The BJP will contest 11 seats, the Shiv Sena four, and the NCP two seats.After intense tussle, BJP keeps 11 seats, Sena gets four and NCP two in council pollsThe 17 seats will be elected by members of local bodies across 26 districts on June 18. The Mahayuti, which won over 65 percent of the seats in urban and rural local body elections between December 2025 and February this year, enjoys a dominant position in the council elections as well. But despite its comfortable position, a cut-throat struggle over seat-sharing was witnessed within the ruling alliance over the past two weeks.While the Sunetra Pawar-led NCP remained firm on contesting two seats, Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde had demanded seven. As there was no consensus on either the number of seats or certain constituencies at the local level, the tussle eventually reached union home minister Amit Shah. Shinde met Shah separately and then jointly with CM Devendra Fadnavis to discuss the issue. However, he managed to secure only one additional seat beyond what Fadnavis had initially offered.The Shiv Sena will fight from Nashik, Parbhani-Hingoli, Yavatmal and its home turf of Thane while the NCP will contest the Konkan and Pune seats. Pune is the only constituency where any other ruling party has more local body members than its big brother ally, the BJP. The BJP will contest the remaining 11 seats—Solapur, Jalgaon, Bhandara-Gondia, Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli, Osmanabad-Latur-Beed, Nagpur, Aurangabad-Jalna, Ahmednagar, Sangli-Satara, Nanded and Amravati.While the Shiv Sena was insistent on both Nashik and Aurangabad, the BJP made it clear that the Sena would have to settle for one of the two. “Fadnavis was firm on contesting the maximum number of seats, as our party can win 16 of the 17 without the support of any ally,” said a BJP leader. “He was not willing to settle for anything lower than 12 seats, but Amit Shah’s intervention helped Shinde secure one additional seat.”The three ruling parties, however, are expected to witness tussles at the local level. In Konkan, where the Shiv Sena and NCP have long been at loggerheads, Shiv Sena MLA Mahendra Dalvi has rebelled against the NCP’s Aniket Tatkare. Dalvi’s daughter, Juilee, filed her nomination as an independent candidate, saying they could not support their bete noire, Aniket’s father Sunil Tatkare.In Nashik, despite the seat being allotted to the Sena, two BJP office-bearers—BJP city vice-president Nilesh Bora and former Nashik Municipal Corporation standing committee chairman Ganesh Geete—have announced their intention to contest as has the Sena’s Vijay Karanjkar.As the decision to concede the Konkan seat to the NCP was taken within the Mahayuti, Sunil Tatkare met Eknath Shinde along with his son, Aniket Tatkare, reportedly to seek his support against opposition contenders. In response, Shinde held a meeting with party workers and office-bearers and directed them to work for Mahayuti candidates and uphold alliance discipline.Sena MLA Mahendra Thorve said that he would abide by the party’s decision and work for Aniket. “We will all support the Mahayuti candidate and participate in the nomination filing process in Ratnagiri on Monday,” Thorve, who is considered an arch-rival of the Tatkares in Raigad’s local politics, said.The Tatkares may nevertheless face the challenge of pacifying the Sena’s Alibaug MLA Mahendra Dalvi, who has intensified his opposition to them. Dalvi’s daughter, Juilee, has filed her nomination as an independent candidate from the Konkan constituency. However, the Mahayuti enjoys a comfortable numerical advantage in the local bodies and is expected to retain the seat.Shinde and Sunil Tatkare are also believed to have discussed the post of Raigad guardian minister, over which the two parties have been locked in a bitter dispute for more than 18 months. Although there are reports that the guardian ministership of Raigad may eventually be left to the Shiv Sena, Tatkare declined to comment. “For now, we are focused on the council elections, as we have to win all 17 seats as the Mahayuti,” he said. “Decisions regarding power-sharing are taken by the three Mahayuti leaders and, of course, the NDA’s top national leadership.”