Unrest in Mahayuti over ward formation in Thane, Navi Mumbai

Tensions rise among political parties in Thane and Navi Mumbai over ward demarcations ahead of civic elections, with allegations of gerrymandering.

THANE/NAVI MUMBAI: With the deadline to submit the draft of the new wards for public’s suggestions and objections drawing close – September 4 – a war has broken out among the Mahayuti alliance partners, as also between the ruling coalition and the Opposition. Everyone is out to mark their territory, their eyes peeled on how the fresh lines of demarcation are being made.

Ganesh Naik (Photo by Bachchan Kumar/ HT PHOTO) (HT PHOTO)

The stakes are high, as the long-awaited civic body elections will follow the assembly elections of 2024, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Mahayuti made a clean sweep. The civic body polls are significant for both the ruling alliance and Opposition for a show of strength and expansion of individual parties locally. Ward formation is crucial as neighbourhoods and localities are known to vote for a particular leader or party. Renegotiating the areas will impact election results where candidates have been known to lose with as narrow a margin as 50 and 100 votes.

The current exercise of realigning areas in Thane (under the jurisdiction of Thane Municipal Corporation), a stronghold of deputy chief minister and head of Shiv Sena Eknath Shinde; and Navi Mumbai, BJP minister Ganesh Naik’s bastion, has set the cat among pigeons. Each party is alleging that the other is out to eat into its territory. On the other hand, in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, local leaders from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have complained that the exercise favours the BJP. NCP leader Yogesh Bahal, said wards were being marked to “suit BJP in Pimpri-Chinchwad, flouting rules”.

NCP (SP) national working president Supriya Sule said in Pune on Monday, that ward formation should be a transparent process “without political pressure” and asked for the deadline be extended by a week bearing in mind the festive season.

Electoral wards are formed under the vigilance of respective municipal commissioners who report to Shinde-led urban development department.

‘Political surgery’ in Navi Mumbai

Strong differences have surfaced between Mahayuti allies, BJP and Shiv Sena, over the draft ward formation for the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) elections. Supporters of Navi Mumbai strongman and BJP minister Ganesh Naik have accused Sena of gerrymandering, terming the draft as “political surgery”, orchestrated from Thane (Shinde’s pocket borough) to dismantle Naik’s decades-long influence in the satellite city.

A senior BJP leader from the Naik camp alleged that certain ward boundaries were “redrawn illogically” to break up their traditional vote banks, and called it a “blatant murder of democracy executed on a map”.

“The boundaries have not been drawn by the Election Commission, but by political agents from Thane,” he claimed. “They have used a surgeon’s knife to cut out our voter base and stitch together disparate areas with no geographical or social connection.”

The BJP used one of the newly formed wards as a case study to drive home the point. Ward 14, which amalgamates 14 villages, was recently brought under NMMC’s jurisdiction, with existing pockets such as Pawane and Turbhe. The party said it “was a calculated move to dilute our established voter base in the two areas”. Sena, on the other hand, maintained that the “process of wards’ demarcation was transparent”.

While Naik reserved comment on the issue, people aware of developments within the party told HT, that he had conveyed to his partymen in a closed-door meeting recently about being abreast of “the game aimed at damaging the chances of our strong candidates”. He told them that he will “fight a decisive battle”, adding he will present details about his move to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Speaking about the unreasonable marking of boundaries, former BJP Navi Mumbai chief Ramchandra Gharat said: “I have had a consistent lead in my area of Turbhe, which has been cut up to include Sanpada, which lies on the other side of the highway. In Turbhe, five wards have been converted into four. Similar blatant violations have occurred in other wards as well.”

Refuting the allegations, Shinde-led Sena’s Navi Mumbai chief Kishore Patkar said, “The commissioner and his team had to manage the population and include 14 villages within the existing 111 wards, adhering to Supreme Court’s order. They have done a good job.” He added that some of his own party’s corporators have been affected by the changes. “Not everything can go according to one’s wishes. We will make suggestions, but not object,” he said.

Meanwhile, the kerfuffle between the two parties has put Mahayuti’s third alliance partner – NCP – and the Opposition MVA on alert.

While Namdeo Bhagat, of the NCP, called the changes “politically motivated”, M K Madhvi, a former Shiv Sena (UBT) corporator said three wards his family has traditionally contested from have been splintered illogically. “Along with vote chori, now there is ward chori,” he alleged.

The NMMC administration, on the other hand, has maintained that the process was provisional. “We have published the draft and invited suggestions and objections from the public. All submissions will be reviewed as per the law before the final ward map is published,” said an official from NMMC’s election department.

Manipulating new wards in Thane?

In Thane city, BJP has objected to the draft of ward formation. Its leaders held a meeting on Monday, in which they alleged manipulation to benefit Shiv Sena, purportedly evidenced by the areas favourable to its candidate being merged with the electoral wards BJP is planning to contest.

There are 131 electoral wards of which Shiv Sena won 67 in the last election held in 2017. All of them joined the Shinde-led Shiv Sena after the split in the party in 2022. Additionally, leaders from NCP and MNS also joined Sena, bringing Sena’s former corporators’ (whose term ended in 2022) headcount to 80.

“Now, the wards have been formed in a manner to ensure they are elected again by adding new areas to old ones favourable to them,” alleged a BJP leader who spoke at the meeting.

Thane city BJP chief Sandeep Lele said he has received complaints from former corporators and officer bearers. “Wards should be formed to benefit people and not political parties,” said Lele.

Recently, BJP leaders had expressed a desire to go solo in Thane. The party had asked its minister Ganesh Naik to hold a Janata Darbar in Thane city to counter the influence of Shinde there and make way for BJP which won only 23 seats in past civic body elections in 2017. Last week, Naik had again challenged the Shinde camp saying BJP could win on its own steam without entering into an alliance with Shinde.

BJP minister Ashish Shelar however dismissed that there was any dispute within the ruling alliance based on local leaders’ critique. “Everyone has an opinion on issues. But it does not mean there is conflict in the alliance. One can submit grievances in suggestions and objections,” said Shelar. Speaking on similar lines, Sena spokesperson Sheetal Mhatre, said: “This is only a draft; there is scope to rectify errors, if any.”

Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, played down the complaints, saying, “Such complaints should be aired on the party’s platform. At the same time, everyone should accept the decision taken by authorities.”

All efforts by HT to speak to deputy CM Eknath Shinde remained futile.