Already smarting under its reverses at the national level, the BJP expects a jolt from the Raj Thackeray-led MNS in some Mumbai seats in the Assembly polls, too.

“There can be no two opinions that there is an undercurrent of support for the MNS. My opinion is that they may not get less votes than they got in the Lok Sabha polls. They may increase,” said a BJP functionary from North Mumbai.

He added that in Assembly seats where the Shiv Sena had not put up a candidate and let the BJP contest, there was a likelihood of the Marathi voters and a section of the Sena cadre and voters gravitating towards the MNS.

The BJP leader pointed to the Kandivali (East) Assembly segment, where the MNS fielded Vinod Pawar and made an issue of the BJP and Congress candidates, Jaiprakash Thakur and Rameshsingh Thakur, being non-Maharashtrians.

“The MNS raised this issue well,” he admitted, adding that the situation would be similar in constituencies in North Mumbai, where the BJP had not put up any candidate of Marathi origin.

A BJP leader added that they expected to win five seats, including Dahisar (Gopal Shetty), Charkop (Yogesh Sagar), Malabar Hill (Mangal Prabhat Lodha), Mulund (Sardar Tara Singh) and Ghatkopar East (Prakash Mehta), while the results in Ghatkopar West (Poonam Mahajan Rao), Bandra West (Ashish Shelar), Colaba (Raj Purohit) and

Malad (R.U Singh) seats would depend on the extent to which the votes of the opposing candidates was divided.

... contd.