The delegation comprising Chief Minister Narayan Rane, former CM Manohar Joshi, Sudhir Joshi, Udhav and Raj Thackeray, Dattaji Nalawade, Satish Pradhan and Subhash Desai will meet party activists at Mumbai, Nagpur, Amravati, Nanded, Aurangabad, Nashik and Pune. The 10-day tour, which will cover all the 33 districts, will begin on September 25 from Mumbai and conclude on October 4.

`The main purpose of the tour will be to assess the political situation and performance of our party functionaries. This is not a new exercise. In fact during last elections too, we had undertaken similar tour. Even before selection of nominees for Lok Sabha and Assembly, a delegation was deputed to visit partymen all over the state,' Raj Thackeray told The Indian Express.

Raj does not feel that the exercise is too early,particularly before the declaration of the results of the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls. `After actually meeting the candidates and heads of district units, we will be in a better position to assess the political situation,' he pointed out.

Secondly, the delegation will also hear grievances of party workers at grassroot level. `We will know if our party workers had really worked for the candidates and if grassroot workers were satisfied by the candidate's performance,' Raj added.

However, a section of the Sena and BJP cabinet members remarked that the main task before the delegation would be to assess the political situation, particularly in the event the alliance does not secure a clear majority. `No doubt, all the opinion polls and surveys conducted by a section of the media have given a clear majority for the alliance, there are no takers for the findings. We feel that though the alliance will emerge as a single largest unit, it will not be in a position to form the government. We will not be able tocross the magic figure of 145 required to form the government,' said a BJP minister.

Though Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, CM Narayan Rane and Raj Thackeray have claimed that the alliance will get a clear majority, the BJP minister said, like in the last elections, the alliance will have to take help of independent legislators to form the government.

`I think we should assess the strength of independents. If their number is more than 20, then no party will be able to form the government without their assistance,' the BJP minister added.

The BJP minister said, on the basis of the assessment made by his party, while the Sena-BJP combine will secure around 130 seats, the Congress will be second with 70 seats, NCP will secure 60 seats, while there will be 20 to 28 independents. `If our assessment proves correct, then we will have to ensure that the independents continue to support the alliance,' he pointed out.