With several corporations throwing up fractured mandates & an intense tug-of-war for power, especially among Mahayuti allies, hectic parleys are on to stake claim to urban local bodies.
A former corporator from undivided Shiv Sena, Shrikant Pangarkar is one of 18 accused in the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh. He was granted bail by Karnataka HC in 2024.
NCP leaders say BJP’s constant poaching of leaders from allied parties has also not gone down well with them. Polls to 29 municipal corporations will be held on 15 January.
The first corporation elections after the splits in the Shiv Sena and the NCP, the single-phase Maharashtra civic polls to test state-level alliances. BMC is the big prize.
Fifteen years since it contested its first BMC election, Raj Thackeray's MNS has been reduced to having just one seat each in the Mumbai civic body and Maharashtra assembly.
This is the game every nation is now learning to play. Some are finding new allies or seeing value among nations where they’d seen marginal interest. The starkest example is India & Europe.
Dispiriting. The same thing happened with the Me Too movement in India.