Shiv Sena (UBT), MNS likely to contest polls in all Mumbai corporations together

Mumbai: At a time when the Thackeray cousins are working at a broader political understanding for the "Marathi-manoos", it has emerged that the Shiv Sena (UBT) and MNS may contest polls in all the nine corporations of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) in alliance, besides several other cities.

Over the past few months, Shiv Sena (UBT) head Uddhav Thackeray and MNS president Raj Thackeray, are working on a political alliance across the state - for the larger cause of Marathi-bhasha and Marathi-asmita after the drubbing in the 2024 Vidhan Sabha elections in Maharashtra.

The MMR has nine municipal corporations - Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivli, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Mira-Bhayander, Vasai-Virar, Navi Mumbai, Panvel and Ulhasnagar.

The indication came from Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut, a close aide of Uddhav and friend of Raj, who had played a key role in bringing the estranged cousins together.

“The Thackeray brothers will win elections together in all places including Mumbai, Thane, Nashik, Kalyan, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar,” he said in the backdrop of MNS and Shiv Sena (UBT) coming together for for the elections to the BEST Employees Cooperative Credit Society Ltd. While the BEST Kamgar Sena will contest 18 of the 21 seats, the MNS Kamgar Sena will contest two and the BEST SC/ST Employees Welfare Association will contest one seat as part of the alliance.

If one looks at the prestigious corporation of Mumbai, the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena has constantly been No. 1 in the BMC - 1997 (103 seats), 2002 (97 seats), 2007 (84 seats), 2012 (75 seats) and 2017 (84 seats).

However, detailed analysis of party position in 2017 polls will show that Shiv Sena leads the tally with 84 followed by Bharatiya Janata Party (82) Congress (31), Nationalist Congress Party (9), Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (7), Samajwadi Party (6), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (2) and others (6). This translates to the fact that the difference between the tally of Shiv Sena and BJP - the two former saffron allies - is just two seats.

As far as the nine MMR corporations are concerned - both the Shiv Sena (UBT) and MNS have presence, however, the BJP and allies are making all efforts to counter the Thackerays.