Shinde Sena not being given chance to contest in former spot, an undivided Shiv Sena bastion, surprises political observers
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. File Pic
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is seeking to tighten its grip over Mumbai’s western suburbs. In the BJP-Shiv Sena (Shinde) alliance, all municipal wards in Vile Parle and Vandre West have gone to the BJP, leaving the Shinde Sena without a single seat in these two segments. In the Charkop Assembly segment, represented by BJP MLA Yogesh Sagar, all six wards have gone to the BJP quota. Upset with this, a section of local Shinde Sena office-bearers quit the party and have joined the Congress. Similarly, in Borivli, the BJP has been allotted six of seven municipal wards, with one going to the Shinde camp.
The Shinde Sena drawing a blank in Vile Parle has come as a surprise to many political observers. Vile Parle was once considered a bastion of the undivided Shiv Sena.
In late 1973, Dr Ramesh Prabhoo of the Shiv Sena had won the municipal elections from Vile Parle. He later went on to become Mumbai’s mayor in 1987-88, underlining the party’s once-strong organisational base in the locality. Over the past several years, however, the constituency has steadily come under BJP dominance.
The skewed allocation of seats for the Shinde-led Sena in these pockets has not gone down well with sections of the party’s local rank and file. “The party should have secured at least two seats in each Assembly constituency,” said a local Shiv Sainik on the condition of anonymity.
Vandre West and Borivli Assembly segments are widely regarded as BJP strongholds, but still, there too, Shinde’s partner cadre is not happy with the seat sharing.
A minister in the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government, Ashish Shelar, and party MLA Parag Alavani represent the Vandre West and Vile Parle assembly constituencies respectively, while Sanjay Upadhyay represents Borivli as a first-time MLA.
A senior leader from the Shinde camp said corporators form the backbone of any political party at the civic level. “If representation is zero or minimal, how will the party expand its influence in such areas?” the leader asked.
However, leaders from both the BJP and the Shinde Sena maintained that the seat-sharing arrangement was based on organisational strength and past electoral performance.
Late on Monday night, the BJP and the Shinde Sena officially announced their seat-sharing formula for the civic polls. Under the arrangement, the BJP will contest 137 seats, while its ally will contest the remaining 90 seats.
Day of rebellion
On the last day of filing nominations, almost every major party faced the fallout of internal rebellion across Mumbai and other municipal corporations in Maharashtra.
In Mumbai, former corporator Anisha Mazgaonkar filed her nomination as an independent candidate after failing to secure a ticket from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) under the Shiv Sena-MNS alliance. Her move highlighted growing discontent among aspirants denied tickets. Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray’s close aide Prakash Patankar quit the party and joined Eknath Shinde’s Sena. Prakash, whose wife who was denied a ticket by Thackeray, was immediately given a Shinde Sena ticket.
In Navi Mumbai, BJP MLA Manda Mhatre publicly expressed her displeasure with senior party leader and minister Ganesh Naik over his style of functioning. She went a step further by challenging him to get all party candidates elected on their own merit.
Similar unrest was seen within the BJP, where several aspirants who were denied tickets also filed nominations as independent candidates. Some of them openly protested against the party leadership, alleging that their claims were unfairly ignored. In Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, tensions within the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance spilled into the open, with both allies blaming each other for the breakdown of coordination ahead of the local body polls.
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