MUMBAI, Nov. 12 -- With the local body polls drawing close, the three parties comprising the ruling Mahayuti held a meeting on Tuesday to chalk out poll strategy, and announced that they would contest most of the local bodies as an alliance. At the same time, however, the BJP has told its leaders to ensure that it emerges as the single largest party in the state. The party has also decided internally to go solo in over half the local bodies to achieve this goal and has brought in revenue minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule as in-charge of the local body polls. A BJP leader explained why CM Devendra Fadnavis had entrusted the responsibility to his trusted aide, Bawankule. "He is seen as an aggressive leader with better human management skills," he said. "After the party won 132 seats in the assembly polls last year, he was made revenue minister, the number two position in the state cabinet. As revenue minister, he is believed to have strong control over the state administration, which will help in the local body polls." Amid demands of going solo from the local units of all three parties, the latter have decided to leave the decision on alliances to the local units. This is expected to result in the BJP going solo in most of the urban local bodies where it performed well in previous elections. Fadnavis, who is spearheading the polls for the BJP, held two meetings during the day. The first one was with local district leaders and the second, late on Tuesday night, with the BJP's core committee to finalise candidates for the municipal councils and nagar panchayats, and take a call on poll alliances. The BJP leadership is believed to have made it clear to the district leadership that the party's interests and political prospects were the top priority in the polls. The district in-charges were given an unambiguous message: to go solo wherever the party was in a strong position and ensure that it emerged on top of all other parties, opposition and allies alike. Fadnavis, however, instructed them to ensure cordial relations with partners and refrain from criticising them in the event of a friendly fight. The meeting with the district in-charges was attended by the national joint general secretary (organisation) Shiv Prakash, organisation secretaries and general secretaries from various regions and cabinet ministers. Shiv Prakash insisted that the party pick candidates with a clean image for better prospects in the polls. Interestingly, the coordination committee of leaders from the three ruling parties also met between the BJP's two meetings. Bawankule and Ravindra Chavan from the BJP, Shambhuraj Desai and Uday Samant from the Shiv Sena and Sunil Tatkare and Hasan Mushrif from the NCP were part of the committee. "We decided to ally wherever beneficial to the alliance, and have friendly fights in the rest of the bodies," said an NCP leader. "Although we have decided to join hands in most bodies, there will be no alliances in bodies where the BJP is stronger." Bawankule claimed the Mahayuti would secure 51% of the vote share and win all the local bodies with a two-thirds majority. "The BJP-Mahayuti will sweep all the urban and local bodies with a decisive mandate," he said. "The BJP will also ensure that there are no disputes or differences among the alliance partners." As many as 686 urban and rural local bodies will go to the polls in the next three months. The polls to municipal councils and nagar panchayats will be held on December 2 while those to district councils and municipal corporations are expected to be held in December and January....