With only 10 days left for the Mumbai civic polls, the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are knee-deep in chalking out meetings, rallies and road shows.
The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are still struggling to finalise their campaign plan.
The Sena has been organising two meetings every day since Sunday and the party chief Balasaheb Thackeray will address meetings in Thane and Mumbai on February 11 and 13 respectively.
“We have chalked out a plan to give time to the candidates for campaigning in their region. The meetings and rallies will be organised as per schedule,” said Anil Desai, Sena secretary.
On Sunday, MNS chief Raj Thackeray met party candidates and interacted with citizens in the western suburbs. “As of now, we are declaring our schedule every day,” said Sachin More, MNS leader.
The NCP-Congress alliance will release their manifesto on Wednesday and hold a rally the next day at the Bandra-Kurla Complex. “NCP president Sharad Pawar and other senior leaders will kick start the campaigning for civic elections,” said Nitin Kadam, NCP leader. He added that the candidates will later hold rallies and meetings in their respective wards.
Congress state spokesperson Sachin Sawant said CM Prithviraj Chavan, along with state leadership, will attend the Congress-NCP joint rally.
“Normally, we don’t call the central leadership for the local bodies’ elections. We are trying to get either Soniaji or Rahulji to address a meeting in the city. But, we are yet to finalise it,” Sawant said, adding that Union leaders such as Kapil Sibal and Salman Khurshid will be in the city for campaigning.
The BJP is yet to finalise meetings and rallies addressed by its central leaders. “We will finalise it in the next two days,” said Atul Shah, BJP’s media in-charge for civic polls.
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