Uddhav Thackeray's Sena ditches Congress, NCP; To go solo in local polls

A day after questioning the viability of the INDIA alliance and warning the Congress that if the opposition alliance is broken will not be able to join together again, the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray Sena on Saturday announced that they would be fighting the Mumbai, Thane,Pune, Nagpur and all other municipal and other local body polls on their own and not in an alliance with its allies Congress and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party.

"We have decided that for all the local municipal elections from Mumbai to Nagpur we will be going solo. Whatever happens we will see."said Sanjay Raut Rajya Sabha MP of the UBT Sena.

Raut said that the UBT had decided to fight on its own as it wants to expand its party and feels that if the party goes into an alliance with the Congress and NCPSP for the local body polls it would mean lesser seats for its grassroot workers. "When would our grass root workers get an opportunity to fight elections? Hence all local body polls like Municipal Polls,zilla parishad and Panchayat polls would be contested by our party independently."said Raut.


Raut claimed that Party President Uddhav Thackeray has already held meetings with party leaders and workers and has given them a go ahead. While Raut has made the announcement today the UBT had decided immediately after the assembly polls to go solo as several UBT leaders told Uddhav while taking a review meeting of the assembly poll debacle that the party's alliance with the Congress and NCPsp has not paid dividends to the party.

The Congress has reacted to UBT's announcement cautiously; with Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar claiming that they would approach UBT President Uddhav Thackeray once more to request him to reconsider their decision. "We would request uddhav ji once to change his mind, if not then the Congress and NCPsp are natural allies, so we too would fight the elections together."said Wadettiwar.