Mahayuti will contest all local polls together, says Maharashtra BJP chief

Mahayuti will fight the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election and all other local body elections together, Maharashtra BJP president Ravindra Chavan said in Nagpur on Friday.

He was speaking a day after holding closed-door discussion with Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, and after appraising Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Wednesday night.

The meetings and the announcement are significant on the backdrop of the acrimony between the ruling alliance partners during the recent local body elections in Maharashtra, where the ruling partners were seen poaching each other’s candidates and key local leaders.

Both the Shiv Sena and the BJP on Friday denied media reports of an understanding on seat sharing for the BMC polls, but Sena sources said there was no way the BJP will contest over 140-150 seats. There are 227 seats in the BMC.

“After the meeting between Ravindra Chavan and Amit Shah, and after the meeting between Eknath Shinde and Ravindra Chavan, one thing is confirmed. It is that all the alliance partners are going to fight all the upcoming local body elections together. But the BJP cannot fight on 140-150 seats in BMC. After the kind of bad blood in the recent nagar parishad elections, they will have to make amends,” a Shiv Sena source toldThe Hindu. He said that it was important for the Mahayuti to fight together in Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivali, Kalyan, among other places.

Mr. Chavan, at a press conference in Nagpur on Friday, said the decision to fight all the upcoming local body elections together was taken after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule and he had held a meeting to discuss the roadmap for the upcoming elections. “The BJP’s core committee also discussed poll preparations. Mr. Fadnavis and Mr. Shinde emphasised the need to evolve a structured mechanism for formulating a joint strategy,” he said.

He added that committees will be formed at the party-level to finalise seat sharing. In case of any differences, the top leaders of all the three parties will sit together to take a decision.

Winnability factor

Shiv Sena sources said that several factors will have to be considered before the seat sharing formula is finalised. “Winnability is a very big criterion. We have several sitting corporators with us. That will have to be considered too, before finalising the formula,” a leader said.

The schedule for the second and third phase of local body elections has not yet been announced in the State.