MUMBAI/ NAVI MUMBAI, Aug. 26 -- With the deadline to submit the draft of the new wards for public's suggestions and objections drawing close - September 4 - a war has broken out among the Mahayuti alliance partners, as also between the ruling coalition and the Opposition. Everyone is out to mark their territory, their eyes peeled on how the fresh lines of demarcation are being made. The stakes are high, as the long-awaited civic body elections will follow the assembly elections of 2024, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Mahayuti made a clean sweep. The civic body polls are significant for both the ruling alliance and Opposition for a show of strength and expansion of individual parties locally. Ward formation is crucial as neighbourhoods and localities are known to vote for a particular leader or party. Renegotiating the areas will impact election results where candidates have been known to lose with as narrow a margin as 50 and 100 votes. The current exercise of realigning areas in Thane (under the jurisdiction of Thane Municipal Corporation), a stronghold of deputy chief minister and head of Shiv Sena Eknath Shinde; and Navi Mumbai, BJP minister Ganesh Naik's bastion, has set the cat among pigeons. Each party is alleging that the other is out to eat into its territory. On the other hand, in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, local leaders from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have complained that the exercise favours BJP. NCP leader Yogesh Bahal, said wards were being marked to "suit BJP in Pimpri-Chinchwad, flouting rules". NCP (SP) national working president Supriya Sule said in Pune on Monday, that ward formation should be a transparent process "without political pressure" and asked for the deadline be extended by a week bearing in mind the festive season. Electoral wards are formed under the vigilance of respective municipal commissioners who report to Shinde-led urban development department....