The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena will fight the forthcoming Maharashtra civic bodies elections alone, the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut announced in Nagpur on Saturday.

Shiv Sena (UBT) has unilaterally announced that the party will go solo in the upcoming nagar panchayat, nagar parishad, zilla parishad and municipal corporation elections. Party MP Sanjay Raut announced this here on Saturday.

Advertisement

“We will fight on our own from Nagpur to Mumbai. It is our decision. When will the workers be given a chance in Mumbai, Thane and Nagpur? Not giving a chance to workers will hurt the party’s growth. All parties should contest local body elections on their own and give a chance to their workers,” Raut said.

“When they are part of the alliance, party workers do not get a chance to fight Lok Sabha and assembly elections. This is affecting the party’s growth. We should fight the elections to municipal corporations, district councils and Nagar Panchayats (town councils) on our own and strengthen our party at the grassroots level,” Raut said, adding that Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has given his consent to fight the forthcoming Maharashtra local and civic body elections independently.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena also sees its hegemony over the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) which has a budget of around Rs 40,000 crore, as crucial to its political survival in Maharashtra. The party has often been criticised for using the cash-rich BMC as its cash cow.

Recently, Thackeray had interacted with his party cadres from across the state where his party workers had made a strong case for fighting Maharashtra civic polls independently.

Raut’s announcement is being viewed as the beginning of a probable disbanding of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance which had contested Lok Sabha and 2024 Maharashtra state assembly elections together.

The latest development has come after Raut had dared the Congress to openly announce on Friday that the INDIA bloc no longer exists, especially after the decision of the Congress to fight against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi assembly elections.

On Friday, Sanjay Raut had openly expressed concerns about the INDIA bloc, echoing Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah’s sentiments about the lack of coordination within the opposition alliance.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah had called for clarity on the opposition INDIA alliance, particularly given tensions between Congress and Aam Aadmi Party ahead of the Delhi assembly elections. Abdullah had said that if the INDIA bloc was only for the Lok Sabha elections, then it must be wound up and opposition parties should start working separately.

“As far as I remember, there was no time limit set on this. Unfortunately, since no meeting of the INDIA bloc has been called, there is no clarity on this—neither regarding leadership, nor the agenda, nor whether we will continue as an alliance or not. Perhaps the elections in Delhi will happen and after that, it would be good if all the stakeholders of the INDIA bloc are called, so that there is clarity on whether this alliance was set up only for the parliamentary elections,” Omar Abdullah had said.

Echoing Abdullah, Raut had spoken about the absence of any strategic meetings within the INDIA bloc after the Lok Sabha elections to chart the alliance’s future path.

“We fought Lok Sabha elections together and the results were good as well. After that it was the responsibility of all of us, especially the Congress, to keep the INDIA alliance alive, sit together and show the way forward. However, so far, not a single such meeting has taken place after the Lok Sabha elections. This is not right for the INDIA alliance. Leaders like Omar Abdullah, Mamta Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Arvind Kejriwal, all say that the INDIA alliance has no existence now,” Raut had said on Friday.

Raut had held the Congress responsible for the state of affairs and said that the INDIA bloc lacks coordination, discussion and dialogue.

“If such a feeling arises in the minds of the people, then the Congress, which is the biggest party of the INDIA alliance, is responsible for this. There is no coordination, no discussion, no dialogue. This means that people have doubts about whether everything is fine or not within the INDIA alliance. If this alliance breaks down, then the INDIA alliance will never be formed again,” Raut had said on Friday.