Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
In the municipal corporation elections, the Uddhav Sena and the Shinde Sena have locked horns against each other. The two factions are in direct contest at 88 seats across 27 prabhags in the city. These contests have drawn keen attention from the city’s electorate.
The deadline for withdrawal of nomination forms for the municipal elections ended at 3 pm on 2 January. Candidates remaining in the fray were allotted their election symbols by the respective prabhag-level returning officers. For the municipal elections, the Uddhav Sena has fielded 93 candidates, while the Shinde Sena has put up 95 candidates.
Relations between the two parties have remained extremely strained since the split in the Shiv Sena in July 2022. Following this split, the Shinde Sena and the Uddhav Sena also contested against each other in the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. Now, for the municipal corporation elections, both factions have again taken on each other at 88 seats across various categories in 27 of the city’s 29 prabhags.
The political future of their candidates will depend on how much effort leaders from both sides put in to ensure the victory of their respective party candidates in different categories, and how successful they are in winning the confidence of the voters.