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The meetings mainly focused on the high-stakes battle with Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut meeting Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray in Mumbai.
Speaking to reporters, Raut said his party and the MNS will join hands for the upcoming civic polls in Mumbai, Mira-Bhayander, Kalyan-Dombivli, Thane, Pune and Nashik, the formal announcement of which is likely to be made in the coming week.
Responding to a question on the alliance, Raut said, “There is no problem in announcing the alliance (between Shiv Sena-UBT and MNS) in the coming week. Both the brothers, Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray, will be seen on the stage for the announcement.”
On alliance with the Congress, Raut said he spoke to the top Congress leadership, and urged the party to contest the civic body elections as part of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which he believes should also include the Raj Thackeray-led MNS.
He said, however, that the top Congress leadership has left the matter for the local leadership to decide.
Both the opposition and the ruling grand alliance insisted that Mumbai would get a Marathi mayor.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting between Shiv Sena and BJP, Mumbai BJP president Amit Satam emphasized that the ruling alliance is working with a clear focus on crossing the 150-seat mark in India’s largest civic body.
“The aim of our discussion is to ensure victory of Mahayuti candidates in all 227 wards with a clear objective of securing more than 150 seats in BMC,” Satam told reporters.
However, BJP leader and minister Ashish Shelar ruled out any alliance with the NCP, a key member of the ruling grand alliance, for the Mumbai civic polls.
Hitting out at the BJP over its stand on the NCP, Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar claimed that the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra would deliberately keep the Ajit Pawar-led NCP out of the civic poll alliance to divide the secular votes.
However, an NCP leader said the party has been preparing for the civic polls for a long time and is holding weekly meetings to strengthen its organization in Mumbai. “After consultation with Ajit Pawar (Deputy CM who is also the NCP chief), we will decide how many seats we will contest. In multi-cornered local elections, individual candidates matter,” he said.
On December 15, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had said that BJP and Shiv Sena will contest the civic elections together in most places, while there will be a friendly contest between BJP and NCP in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
On the Congress side, its Mumbai president Varsha Gaikwad said her party will fight next month’s Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections on local civic issues and voters will not fall for the BJP’s ‘religious agenda’.
Imtiaz Jaleel of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, which is marginalized in the state but enjoys support in Muslim-dominated areas, said he will contest 27 seats in Maharashtra’s 29 civic corporations, including Mumbai, in the January elections and is open to an alliance with like-minded organizations and the opposition MVA.
He did not specify how many seats the party would contest, but said its candidates for the January 15 elections would be announced by December 22 or 23.
On Tuesday, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aditya Thackeray also hit out at the BJP for taking credit for the work done by his party. At a party event, he urged Shiv Sena (UBT) workers to carry forward the work done by the undivided Shiv Sena for Mumbai from 1997 to 2022, when it ruled the BMC.
Over one crore voters are eligible to cast their vote and decide who will rule the BMC for the next five years when elections are held for the country’s richest civic body.
BMC published the final voter list on its official portal, showing that there are 1,03,44,315 voters in all 227 wards.
The high-stakes elections for Maharashtra’s 29 municipal corporations, including cash-rich Mumbai, will see the Mahayuti and the MVA competing for electoral supremacy in the state’s major urban centres. Counting of votes will take place on January 16.
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