Mumbai, Oct 16: Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Wednesday said Chief Minister Eknath Shinde should be willing to make "sacrifices", in terms of seat-sharing for the assembly polls, like the BJP has done to keep the alliance intact.

The comments come a day after the Election Commission of India announced the schedule for polls to 288 seats in the state assembly.

Voting is scheduled on November 20 and the counting will take place on November 23.

"Chief Minister Eknath Shinde must remain open-minded and be willing to make sacrifices. We, too, have made sacrifices to uphold the alliance. It is evident that the BJP aims to contest the seats we previously held," Bawankule told ABP Majha news channel in Nagpur.

As the dominant party in the alliance, it is only natural for the BJP to seek more seats, he said.

Asked if Union Home Minister Amit Shah reportedly stated that the BJP "sacrificed" the CM's post while forging an alliance with Shinde-led Shiv Sena, Bawankule said, "I do not know what Union minister Amit Shah said to Shinde. It is true that the chief minister holds the highest position and represents the government."

"But, the common party workers feel that we (BJP) have the maximum MLAs, even if chief minister's post is with Eknath Shinde, posts in corporations and ministerial posts should be with BJP," he told reporters.

Bawankule said they have urged Shinde that as the larger party, BJP should have a bigger share for contesting seats. It is impossible to measure who made greater "sacrifices", the BJP leader said.

"As the chief minister, he could have expected more seats to contest in the assembly polls. However, it is not feasible to enter the elections with tension within the alliance. Our stance is that we should be able to contest the seats we have previously won," Bawankule said.

There is no point in demanding more seats to contest for the sake of numbers, he said.

Asked about the agenda of BJP leaders' meeting in New Delhi scheduled on Wednesday, Bawankule said, "We will discuss the candidates and the seats we want to contest. There are some seats that we lost by a thin margin in the 2019 assembly elections."

"We will be holding discussions on the sitting seats (which BJP won) and the ones which we fought well last time," the BJP state chief said.

There will not be any discussion on the seats won by the Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar-headed NCP in today's meeting, he said.

The BJP has conducted a detailed survey for Maharashtra and based on it, the discussion will take place in Delhi, he added.

On the possibility of swapping some seats with the alliance partners, Bawankule said, "We may consider swapping a few seats with Shiv Sena. Additionally, there are strong candidates from both BJP and NCP, as the NCP contested against us in the 2019 assembly polls. We need more time to take a final decision in this matter."

Bawankule, who is a member of the state legislative council, also said he would not seek a ticket from the party.

"I won the Kamthi assembly seat in 2014 but the party asked me not to contest the 2019 polls. I have been working as the BJP state president since some time. The party will take a final decision on whether I should contest the election or not. The BJP will win the Kamthi seat irrespective of the candidate," he said.

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Ottawa, Oct 16: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday acknowledged that he had only intelligence and no "hard evidentiary proof" when he alleged the involvement of Indian government agents in the killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year.

Testifying before the public inquiry into foreign interference in federal electoral processes and democratic institutions, Trudeau claimed the Indian diplomats were collecting information on Canadians who are in disagreement with the Narendra Modi government and passing it to the highest levels within the Indian government and criminal organisations like the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.

"I was briefed on the fact that there was intelligence from Canada, and possibly from Five Eyes allies that made it fairly clear, incredibly clear, that India was involved in this... Agents of the government of India were involved in the killing of a Canadian on Canadian soil," he said.

He added that it was something that his government had to take extremely seriously.

'Five Eyes' network is an intelligence alliance consisting of the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It is both surveillance-based and signals intelligence (SIGINT).

"India had indeed done it, and we had reasons to believe that they had," Trudeau said, adding that his government's immediate approach was to engage with the government of India to work on this together to make sure that there was accountability.

Recalling the G20 summit hosted by India in September last year, he said it was a big moment for India, and Canada "had the opportunity of making it a very uncomfortable summit" for India if it went public with these allegations.

"We chose not to. We chose to continue to work behind the scenes to try and get India to cooperate with us," he said.

Trudeau said the Indian side asked for evidence "and our response was, well, it's within your security agencies."

But the Indian side insisted on the evidence. "And at that point, it was primarily intelligence, not hard evidentiary proof. So we said, well, let's work together and look into your security services and maybe we can get that done," he said.

He said he met Prime Minister Modi after the end of the G20 summit in Delhi and shared that "we knew that they were involved and expressed a real concern around it. He responded with the usual response from him, which is that we have people who are outspoken against the Indian government living in Canada that he would like to see arrested."

Trudeau said he tried to explain that there is freedom of speech in Canada to criticise governments overseas or indeed to criticise a Canadian government.

"But as always, we would work with them on any evidence or any concerns they have around terrorism or incitement to hate or anything that is patently unacceptable," he said.

"We launched investigations. The Indian response to these allegations and our investigations was to double down on attacks against this government, attacks against this government's integrity, attacks against Canada in general, but also to arbitrarily eject dozens of Canadian diplomats from India," he said.

"This was a situation in which we had clear and certainly now even clearer, indications that India had violated Canada's sovereignty," he said.

He alleged that the Indian diplomats were collecting information on Canadians who were in disagreement with the Modi government, passing along that information to the highest levels within the Indian government, and to criminal organizations like the Bishnoi gang.

"...It was the RCMP determination that that chain, or that sequence, that scheme, needed to be disrupted and going public on Monday as they did," he said.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on Monday said it has evidence that six Indian diplomats were involved in the alleged plot to murder Nijjar in June 2023.

The RCMP also alleged that the Bishnoi gang is connected to the agents of the Indian government, which is targeting the South Asian community specifically "pro-Khalistani elements" in the country.

On this, India strongly rejected attempts by Canadian authorities to link Indian agents with criminal gangs in Canada with official sources in New Delhi even saying that Ottawa's assertion that it shared evidence with New Delhi in the Nijjar case was simply not true.

The sources in New Delhi also rejected Trudeau's previous allegations that India was engaging in activities including carrying out covert operations targeting Canadian nationals in his country.

India expelled six Canadian diplomats and announced withdrawing its high commissioner from Canada after dismissing Ottawa's allegations linking the envoy to a probe into the killing of Nijjar.

Nijjar was gunned down in Surrey, British Columbia, in June last year.