Sena-BJP combine will win 35 seats in Maha: Munde

The Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party-led opposition alliance in Maharashtra will win 35 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats, senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde claimed here today.

"In 2004, we got 25 seats and in 2009 we got 20. This time around, we have a Modi wave going in our favour and are confident of winning at least 35 seats," Munde said.

The state government has misused its machinery during the elections, Munde told reporters here. "In the entire election, wrong information was given in the guise of police sources," Munde said.

"BJP Mumbai unit chief Ashish Shelar should lodge a complaint with the Election Commission in this regard...If the poll panel does not take cognisance, we will approach the court," he added.

"It is wrong to make public a classified report and it is also wrong to give false information, Shelar said, referring to reportage in a section of media that the crowd at the Rahul Gandhi rally here was bigger than the one at Modi's rally on the same ground the next day.

Munde said he did not notice any 'AAP wave' in the state, though the party had contested all the 48 seats.

"It was only Sharad Pawar who handled the Congress NCP campaign in the state," Munde said. "Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan was not visible in the campaign," he added.

Sharad Pawar's statement that he would not like to be a part of a UPA-3 government is an indication that he has conceded defeat, Munde said.

Pawar was absent for Rahul Gandhi's Mumbai rally as he does not like his leadership, Munde said.

There was almost an eight per cent increase in polling percentage in the ongoing polls compared to previous ones, Munde said. The rise was due to youngsters, he added.

On reports of names of several people missing from the electoral rolls, Munde said the entire bureaucracy conspired with Congress-NCP to delete the names of Sena-BJP supporters from electoral rolls, and demanded a CBI probe into the matter.