Thaindian News

Mumbai, Jan 9 (IANS) As other political parties continued to squabble over seat-sharing, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and Samajwadi Party Monday announced their decision to contest all 227 seats in the ensuing Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls.

Announcing it would contest all the seats, a Samajwadi Party spokesman said the decision was taken at a party meeting presided by state party chief Abu Asim Azmi.

The MNS is also contesting all the seats.

“We are planning to contest and put up our candidates in all the city wards,” said Vageesh Saraswat, vice president of the Raj Thackeray-led party.

“The MNS is going ahead independently. We shall not have any formal or informal arrangement with any political party, nor any overt or covert alliances. We shall contest all seats on our own strength,” Saraswat told IANS.

According to him, the list of MNS candidates for the civic polls is almost ready and all of those who had appeared and cleared the pre-qualifying examination have been selected.

In the previous (2007) BMC elections, the MNS opened its account in election politics by bagging seven city wards.

Bouyed by the success, MNS also contested the 2009 Lok Sabha, but failed to bag a single seat.

However, it succeeded in damaging the prospects of the rival Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance candidates in several LS constituencies around the state.

Similarly, during the 2009 Maharashtra Assembly elections, MNS won 13 seats, giving a major jolt to the saffron alliance.

The 2012 BMC elections are considered a matter of prestige for Raj and Udddhav - the estranged Thackeray cousins, especially since the SS-BJP combine has been ruling over the country’s richest civic body since past two decades.

The developments come even as the major mainstream political parties — the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance on one and the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party-Republican Party of India combine on the other — have yet to complete their seat sharing for the civic polls.