New Delhi: Sensing a surge in Maharashtra, the INDIA bloc will stage a mega rally in Mumbai on May 17 where Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Shiv Sena UBT’s Uddhav Thackeray and NCP-SP’s Sharad Pawar will seek support for the opposition candidates. According to party insiders, efforts are on to make AAP founder and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is out on bail, attend the rally, being dubbed as a show of strength against the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP combine.
“Mumbai is the heart of Maharashtra and a fierce battleground as well. The opposition will stage a massive rally in Mumbai on May 17. The opposition alliance will win all the six seats in Mumbai as it has been doing very well in the rest of the state in the past four phases,” AICC secretary in-charge of Maharashtra Ashish Dua told ETV Bharat.
Since 2022, Mumbai has witnessed a turf war between the two factions of Shiv Sena, one led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the other by Uddhav Thackeray for the legacy of party founder and stalwart the late Bala Saheb Thackeray.
The BJP broke the Sena in 2022 installing breakaway faction leader Eknath Shinde as the Chief Minister, which led to the ouster of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government headed by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, which came to power in 2019 when the Sena parted ways with long-time ally BJP. The Congress-Shiv Sena-NCP had come together to form the MVA.
In 2023, the BJP broke the NCP and made Ajit Pawar, leader of the breakaway faction, the deputy chief minister. Out of the total six, the Congress is contesting two seats in Mumbai, North Central and North while the Sena UBT is fighting on four seats Mumbai South, Mumbai South-Central, Mumbai North-East and Mumbai North-West seats.
In three seats, there is a direct fight between the two factions of Shiv Sena. In Mumbai South, sitting MP Arvind Sawant of Shiv Sena UBT is fighting Shiv Sena Shinde’s Byculla MLA Yamini Jadhav. In Mumbai South-Central, Shiv Sena UBT’s Anil Desai is pitted against sitting MP Rahul Shewale of the Shiv Sena and in Mumbai North-West, Shiv Sena UBT’s Amol Kirtikar is fighting Shiv Sena’s Ravindra Waikar.
In Mumbai North-East, Shiv Sena UBT’s Sanjay Dina Patil is pitted against Mihir Kotecha of BJP. In Mumbai North Central, Mumbai Congress chief Varsha Gaikwad is pitted against BJP’s Ujjwal Nikam, a well-known lawyer. BJP leader Poonam Mahajan, daughter of veteran the late Pramod Mahajan, had won the seat twice in the past, but was denied a ticket this time.
In Mumbai North, Congress nominee Bhushan Patil is pitted against Union Minister Piyush Goyal, who has entered the fray for the Lok Sabha for the first time. The Congress was eying the Mumbai South Central seat, but the Sena UBT refused to budge from its claim, which led to former MP Sanjay Nirupam quitting the grand old party.
The campaigning has witnessed sharp exchanges between the two Sena factions amid a slew of charges and counter-charges to showcase supremacy in the state capital. “The BJP formed a government by unfair means. It may have taken the Sena and NCP MLAs, but the people are still supporting Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, who were stabbed in the back through engineered defections. This time the MVA will do much better,” Mumbai Congress leader Charan Singh Sapra told ETV Bharat.
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