Maharashtra BJP chief clears air ahead of BMC polls: 'No tie-up with Raj Thackeray's MNS'

Putting an end to speculation on Wednesday, Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrakant Patil revealed that his party will not form an alliance with MNS for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls. After Patil and Devendra Fadnavis met Raj Thackeray in the last few months, rumour mills were abuzz that the possibility of an alliance for the upcoming Municipal Corporation elections in Nashik, Mumbai, Pune, and Thane. Speaking to the media, Patil also predicted that BJP will win an adequate number of seats required to elect its own Mayor in Mumbai. 

Maharashtra BJP president Chandrakant Patil remarked, "This issue has ended a long time ago. BJP will not ally with MNS. Devendra Fadnavis, Ashish Shelar and I have spoken on this. Raj Thackeray has also accepted this. He has told his party workers not to bother about an alliance. BJP has no proposal to tie up with MNS." 

He added, "Last time, BJP could have got its Mayor. We had 82 (seats) and Shiv Sena had 84 (seats). But Amit Shah asked us to give the Mayor's post of BMC to Shiv Sena to ensure that the government functions smoothly in Maharashtra and you function as the watchdog. BJP will get more than 117 seats required to win the Mayor's post." 

Neck-to-neck battle between Shiv Sena & BJP

BMC is considered Asia’s richest civic body with an annual budget of nearly Rs.37,000 crore. Shiv Sena has been a formidable force in the civic elections even when NCP-Congress was in power in the state. In the 2017 civic polls, BJP and Shiv Sena contested separately as they could not agree to the seat-sharing formula. Reportedly, Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had threatened to pull out from the BJP government both in Maharashtra as well as the Centre at that juncture.

Thus, the 2017 BMC election became a prestige battle for the Sena and BJP. The results brought in more cheer for BJP than the Sena as the former secured 82 seats, an increase of 51 seats from the previous election. Moreover, the Shiv Sena fell way short of the majority winning just 84 seats. On the other hand, Congress, NCP, and MNS won 31, 7 and 6 seats respectively.

After hectic negotiations, BJP decided not to challenge the Sena on the Mayor’s position. Thus, Shiv Sena's Kishori Pednekar and Suhas Wadkar won the election to the posts of Mayor and Deputy Mayor respectively on November 22, 2017. While the divide between the two allies continued to grow over the years, the Sena consolidated its position in the BMC when all 6 winning candidates of the MNS joined the party.