BMC elections: Fifteen 'friendly fights' leave voters scratching their head; seat-sharing disputes spark confusion

MUMBAI: Despite the BJPSena Mahayuti, Sena (UBT)MNS-NCP(SP) and CongressVBA alliances in the BMC polls, there are 15 friendly fights taking place.Political observers said that in an election where every seat matters, friendly fights could damage the prospects of the alliances.While in some cases the friendly fights are a result of disagreements in seat sharing, in other cases these could also be part of a strategy to divide the opposition votes and make sure the preferred candidate wins. Most of the friendly fights are in the Mahayuti — BJP vs Sena and BJP-Sena vs RPI (A). There is one Congress vs VBA contest in Bhandup.As a result of the friendly fights despite the hammering together of alliances, there is an atmosphere of confusion among the voters. Due to hard bargaining and negotiations between parties, alliance talks were not finalised by the time the elections were announced.“Even after the deadline for filing nominations was over, the major parties had not officially announced their candidacies. Due to this confusion, the Mahayuti candidates were not able to file their nominations for four seats. Later in some seats, multiple candidates from the same alliance filed nominations and many of them did not withdraw from the race. As a result there are 15 friendly fights,” an observer said.Ramdas Athawale’s RPI (A) is part of Mahayuti but his party has fielded official candidates in as many as 11 wards, five of them against the BJP and six against the Shiv Sena.Taking a dig at the Shiv Sena, assembly speaker and BJP MLA Rahul Narwekar said that the Shiv Sena candidate in Colaba’s Ward No 225 will be defeated by more than 10,000 votes.From the ward, Rahul Narwekar’s sister-in-law Harshita Narwekar and Shiv Sena’s Sujata Sanap filed their nominations.In Ward No. 226, where Rahul Narwekar’s brother Makarand Narwekar is contesting the election, Shiv Sena’s zonal office-bearer Deepak Pawar’s wife Tejal has also filed her nomination as an independent.