The elections to Mumbai’s 36 Assembly seats will hinge on two questions: whether Raj Thackeray’s MNS will once again upset equations for the BJP-Shiv Sena, and whether the Congress and the NCP will forge an alliance.

The MNS showed its potential in the Lok Sabha elections when it ate into the saffron vote-bank with its sons-of-the-soil agenda and denied the Sena-BJP even one of Mumbai’s six seats. The MNS led in five Assembly segments, the Sena in two and the BJP in five, but the division of votes helped the Congress-NCP sweep all six seats.

Both the Congress and the NCP would bank on the MNS to take on the Sena-BJP again. Much will, however, also depend on the nature of the Congress- NCP alliance, if and when it comes through. They had contested separately in the 2007 BMC polls and suffered. The Congress won 72 seats and the NCP 14; the Sena-BJP won 112 and came to power.

The MNS played a lesser role then, winning only seven seats. Since then, it has come a long way, riding Raj’s anti-migrant outbursts and the publicity around these.

One loss the Sena is coping with is that of former chief minister Narayan Rane, who was followed into the Congress by many supporters as well as Naigaon MLA Kalidas Kolambkar. But the Sena’s toughest challenge will be from the MNS in the Mumbai-Thane belt, which will send 60 MLAs to the Assembly and will be crucial for any alliance’s hopes.

The MNS has also been poaching on the Sena, those it has inducted including Sena MLA from Mazgaon Bala Nandgaonkar who contested from Mumbai South and upset five-term MP Mohan Rawale’s hopes.

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