Pune: Raju Shetti-led Swabhimani Paksha on Wednesday severed ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party, and forged an alliance with the Shiv Sena for the Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC), which goes to polls on February 21.
The acrimony between the Sena and the BJP has set the stage for eleventh hour alliances in major civic bodies in Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Solapur.
Commenting on the alliance with the Sena in the NMC, Mr. Shetti said, “Our workers are free to contest independently or choose their alliance partners for the civic polls, except the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), against who our main fight remains.”
He said that the damage caused by demonetisation, and the crisis afflicting onion farmers, are some of the issues his party activists would take up during their campaign against the BJP.
Mr. Shetti has been nursing a grouse against the BJP for it’s alleged high-handedness during the seat-sharing talks for the civic and the zilla parishad polls. According to Mr. Shetti, his party, which has a considerable following in the State’s “sugar belt”, was not consulted during the seat-sharing process.
As a result, despite retaining ties with the BJP in the State, relations between the two parties remain cold, with Mr. Shetti refusing to campaign for the BJP candidates in the civic polls.
With the strength of Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) considerably whittled down in the NMC following its defeat in the 2014 Assembly elections, the BJP seems poised to make significant gains in the area.
However, the Sena, which had secured 19 seats in the last civic polls, hopes to spoil the BJP’s pitch.
Likewise, Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), an important power in the area, is also on the back foot, owing to Chhagan Bhujbal’s present term behind the bars on charges of corruption. Mr. Bhujbal is the party’s top leader in the region.
A total of 821 candidates are in the fray for the NMC polls.
