BMC poll campaign reaches feverish pitch

MUMBAI ,February14 2012: Campaigning for Thursday’s elections to the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) reached feverish pitch on Monday, the penultimate day for rallies and gatherings, as leaders made a last-minute plea to the electorate in the city to vote for their parties.Elections to the BMC and nine other civic bodies — including those in Thane, Pune, Nashik and Nagpur — will be held on Thursday. The Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) combine, which rules the state, is determined to defeat the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance, especially in Mumbai. The saffron partners have this time also roped in the Republican Party of India (RPI), Athavale faction, but are fearful of the impact that the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena — set up by Raj, the estranged nephew of Bal Thackeray, the Shiv Sena founder — will have on the elections. A confident Congress-NCP hopes to take control of the BMC, India’s richest civic body, from the Hindutva partners this time. And helping them would be the MNS, which will eat into a large share of the Sena vote bank, both in Mumbai and Thane. Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan of the Congress, and NCP chief — and union agriculture minister — Sharad Pawar have been campaigning extensively, both for the elections to the 10 civic bodies, besides the zilla parishads (district-level elected bodies) and panchayats (village-level bodies) held this month. This is the first time in years that a sitting chief minister has campaigned extensively for local body elections in the state, especially taking on the Shiv Sena. Even Pawar, who is seen to be quite close to Thackeray, has been targeting the party. With campaigning coming to a close on Tuesday evening, both the Shiv Sena and the MNS are raising the pitch, hoping to win over each other’s supporters. Raj Thackeray of the MNS was disappointed after the courts refuse to give him permission to hold a rally at Shivaji Park in central Mumbai. Instead, he addressed a rally in Worli on Monday night, while the Shiv Sena organised a huge gathering at the Bandra-Kurla complex. Police were out in full strength to prevent the outbreak of violence.