Mumbai, Dec. 16 -- Senior Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar on Tuesday claimed that the ruling Mahayuti alliance was deliberately keeping the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) out of civic poll tie-ups as part of a strategy to divide secular votes ahead of the municipal corporation elections scheduled for January 15.
He was talking to reporters in the context of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis declaring recently that the BJP and Shiv Sena would contest civic polls together in most places, while "friendly contests" would be held between the BJP and the NCP in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
Wadettiwar remarked that while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena would contest the elections together, the ...