If NDA partner Shiv Sena is to be believed, the seat-sharing formula for the remaining 28 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra will be out by Sunday or Monday. Insiders said it wasn`t Sena that delayed the announcement, but the unrelenting demand from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for at least 10 seats that complicated matters for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which wants to contest more than 30 seats.

The BJP has made its 20 candidates public but is still fine-tuning the sharing formula for the remaining 28 seats, in which all three allies have stakes. Apart from Baramati, Parbhani, Shirur, and Raigad, the Ajit Pawar-led NCP has demanded Gadchiroli, Bhandara-Gondia, Dharashiv, Satara, Nashik, Buldhana, and Yavatmal-Washim. The rank and file of all three partners are anxious about the final formula for the polls, which will be notified on Saturday afternoon by the Election Commission of India.