THANE: A clear divide in the two major political alliances in the state emerged on the final day of filing nominations for the Ambernath and Badlapur municipal council elections, slated to be held on Dec 2. In Ambernath, Shiv Sena and BJP held their own respective shows of strength as their candidates – Manisha Walekar for Sena and Tejashree Karanjule for BJP – formed their nominations for the post of president of the council. There is going to be a direct election for the president’s election, and Sena and BJP are pitted against each other.
Within the MVA, differences became clearly visible. While Congress is contesting independently on 47 seats out of the total 59 and has fielded Nutan Pradeep Patil for the president’s post, alliance partners Shiv Sena (UBT), MNS and NCP (SP) have jointly fielded Anjali Raut from Sena (UBT) as candidate for president.This has made the battle complex: Sena vs BJP vs UBT Sena-MNS-NCP (SP) vs Congress vs NCP. Sena MP Shrikant Shinde said his party’s mayoral (council president) candidate will win by a huge margin. In Badlapur, Sena’s Veena Mhatre filed nomination for the president’s post. Unlike Ambernath, MVA partners in Badlapur appeared more united, with Sena (UBT), NCP (SP), Congress and sections of MNS coming together.In Ambernath, all 14 MNS candidates are contesting on the UBT Sena’s ‘mashaal’ symbol while in Badlapur, one MNS candidate will contest on the UBT symbol and two, including Badlapur city president Sangeeta Chinvankar, refused and filed nomination as independents. – Pradeep Gupta
