Parties raise the pitch ahead of civic polls

Political parties are taking an increasingly aggressive stance ahead of the upcoming civic elections in both Delhi and Maharashtra (due 2017).

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election is due in 2017. Maharashtra's ruling coalition partners Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party are preparing to go solo. Both are ruling India's richest civic body, which recently passed a budget of Rs 37,052 crore for 2016-17.

''BJP has overtaken Shiv Sena in the Assembly election held in 2014 both in Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra after the alliance broke. The party has since taken a number of decisions for expediting growth in Greater Mumbai and it does not want to be cornered by the opposition on issues relating to corruption. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis wants to cash in on the party's development agenda,'' a BJP legislator said.

Shiv Sena is perfectly happy to go it alone as well.''Shiv Sena has not forgotten the way BJP ditched the alliance at the last minute for the Assembly poll. Thereafter, Sena independently contested the election to the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation and outsmarted BJP," a party worker said.

On Sunday, senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan said the Shiv Sena may break off its alliance with the BJP before the civic polls.

"The coalition is full of contradictions and the kind of spat the two parties are having is evidence of that," the former Maharashtra chief minister said.

In Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's declaration that his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will undertake a referendum to decide whether Delhi wanted to be ruled by a Lieutenant Governor (LG) or not has no constitutional sanction but is seen as a political exercise to extend AAP's mandate to the civic bodies that enjoy a degree of autonomy and are dominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Civic body elections to Delhi too are due in 2017. Recent by elections to vacancies in Delhi civic bodies had yielded a rich haul for AAP.

On Saturday, the Delhi Police - that reports to the LG and the Home Ministry - arrested MLA dinesh Mohaniya for misbehaving with a group of women who had gone to see him in connection with a water crisis.

On Sunday 52 AAP legislators, including Delhi deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, were detained for four hours for marching towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official residence in protest against Mohaniya's arrest.

Earlier in the day, Sisodia tweeted, "Modiji, you have arrested us and kept us in Parliament Street police station. We are ready to go to Tihar jail. But do not stop the work in Delhi."

The BJP alleged that AAP was merely playing to the galleries.

"Maintaining law and order is the job of the Delhi Police. By safeguarding the Dinesh Mohaniya, he ( Sisodia) is encouraging (his partymen) to misbehave with women."

The police said it was doing its job. "If the minister violates the law we will arrest them, nobody is above the law. They cannot protest near the PM's residence. We had asked them to protest near Jantar Mantar but they refused," said Joint Commissioner of Police MK Meena.