In a development that came close on the heels of its decision to support Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi Assembly polls and which reflected the widened rift within the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena on Saturday announced that it would contest the forthcoming local body in the state independently.  

A day after he questioned the very relevance of the Opposition INDIA bloc at the national level, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP and spokesperson Sanjay Raut dropped a bombshell by saying that his party would go it alone in the local body polls.  

Talking to media persons, Raut said: “As already indicated by our party president Uddhav Thackeray, from Nagpur to Mumbai we will contest all the municipal corporation polls independently. Let’s see what happens. We will get to know our party’s strength across the state”.

“If we are to contest the polls as an alliance, when will our party workers get an opportunity to contest the polls? If our workers don’t get a chance to fight polls, it will affect the party’s growth. If we are to contest the municipal corporation, Zilla Parishad and Nagar Panchayat polls, our party will be strengthened,” Raut said.

However, the Congress and NCP (Sharad Pawar) have not yet come out with a formal statement on the decision of their alliance partner -- the Shiv Sena (UBT) -to contest the forthcoming local body polls independently. NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar, reacting to the Sena (UBT)’s decision to support the AAP in the Delhi Assembly polls, had expressed serious concerns that the Uddahv Thackeray-led party’s decision might have a negative impact on the prospects of the prospects of all three MVA partners in the polls.

Raut’s statement appeared to be in line with the stand taken by the Shiv Sena (UBT) on Friday, when he had indirectly slammed the Congress for its failure to keep the INDIA bloc together, and also questioned the very relevance of the all Opposition front at the national level.

“We fought the Lok Sabha elections together, we got good results. After that it was the responsibility of all of us, especially Congress, to keep the INDIA alliance alive, sit together and guide the way forward. But till now not a single such meeting has taken place after the Lok Sabha elections. This is not right,” Raut had said.

“Leaders like Omar Abdullah, Mamta Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Arvind Kejriwal have said that the INDIA bloc is no longer in existence. If people have begun to nurse such doubts, I would say the biggest party in the alliance -Congress — is responsible for this. There is no coordination, there is no discussion. This means that there are serious doubts in the minds of the people whether everything is fine in the INDIA alliance or not... If this alliance breaks once, then the INDIA alliance will not be formed again,” Raut had said.

The Shiv Sena (UBT)’s decision to go it alone in the local body polls should be seen in the context of the fact that the Opposition MVA is in total disarray after its miserable performance in the recent Maharashtra Assembly polls, when the Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress, and NCP won 20, 16, and 10 seats, respectively, as against the 230 seats out of the total 288 seats collectively bagged by the ruling MahaYuti partners - comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and NCP (Ajit Pawar).

Informed sources in the Congress said that the central party leadership might reach out to Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray in the coming days, while NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar - who incidentally is the architect of the MVA - might initiate talks with Thackeray in his effort to salvage the situation that threatens to go out of hand.