The Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi received a major relief after the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the petition filed by BJP leaders from Maharashtra challenging the government’s decision to increase the number of BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation wards to 236 from 227 citing the rise in population.
BJP, which has launched Mission 2022, however, got a major jolt as the party had sought the court’s intervention challenging the government’s move. The BJP leaders in the plea also challenged the Bombay High Court order that had permitted the MVA government to take up the issue further and rejected the saffron party's plea.
The MVA government has strongly defended the increase the number of wards to 236 from 227 in view of 3.8 per cent increase in the population in BMC’s jurisdiction and fast growing urbanisation. In addition, the decision was taken to give more representation to the elected representatives as the number of corporators was fixed at 227 as per the 2001 census and it was not revised after the 2011 census.
Shiv Sena has already geared up the poll preparations to retain power while BJP has put in place various poll management committees in a bid to defeat its former ally Shiv Sena in the coming BMC elections which are expected to take place in April.
BJP, which is yet to recover from the loss of power after the erstwhile ally Shiv Sena parted ways and formed the MVA government in November 2019, has claimed that the state government didn't have any "quantifiable data or latest census population data available" to support the move, since the last census was held in 2011.
BJP has expressed its resolve to end Shiv Sena’s more than three-decade rule in India’s richest civic body - BMC. However, the Shiv Sena is not deterred by BJP’s aggressive postures but has stepped up voters’ outreach playing up development plank along with the traditional Marathi Manoos card.
BJP is also firing salvos against Shiv Sena in particular while making corruption in the BMC and in the ongoing projects including Shiv Sena President and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s flagship Mumbai Coastal Road project. Sena and BMC have already denied corruption charges hinting that the project will be commissioned in December 2023.
Shiv Sena has already decided that Yuva Sena Chief and Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray will be party’s face who will lead the party in the BMC elections as there will be limitations on the Chief Minister’s movement in the wake of recent spine surgery. Aaditya has increased his visits across Mumbai while not restricting it to his assembly segment Worli to inaugurate a slew of development and beautification projects.
Even as the Shiv Sena and BJP are currently involved in a war of words over the deployment of central probe agencies by the Centre against the MVA leaders, Shiv Sena has shrewdly revived the Marathi Manoos card forcing BJP to tweak its poll strategy. Interestingly, Thackeray has already asked the party cadre to also reach out to the non-Marathi-speaking voters reiterating that the party has not left Hindutva though it was against the BJP’s Neo-Hindutva.
