MUMBAI, June 1 -- 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. The 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....