In Sena (UBT) stronghold, official candidate and rebel share stage

Nagpur: With barely six days left for campaigning to wind down and the city scheduled to vote on January 15, the civic election slipped into its most unpredictable phase. Instead of straight contests, key wards are witnessing unusual political partnerships, where party candidates are openly sharing stage and door-to-door routes with rebels they were expected to oppose.The most striking example emerged in ward 28, traditionally seen as Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)'s safest turf. Here, official Sena candidate Mangala Gaware and a party rebel Nitin Tiwari virtually stitched themselves into one campaign, moving around together, distributing joint pamphlets, and appealing to voters as a panel, despite being technically on opposite sides.
For residents, the message is simple: Vote for both. For the party, however, it is a public admission that discipline has collapsed. Instead of projecting unity behind the authorised nominee, Sena workers are confused, divided, and forced to balance loyalties, with one mashal (flaming torch, the party's poll symbol) effectively pitched against another.The arrangement changed the ground mood completely. Campaign vehicles bear photographs of both contestants. Corner meetings are addressed jointly. Workers whisper that defeating ‘outsiders' matters more than following the party line, a sentiment that threatens to burn through Sena UBT's strongest bastion. Both Tiwari and Gaware are campaigning together, while Tiwari is contesting against the party's official candidate and former deputy mayor Kishore Kumeriya.A similar script is playing out in Prabhag 31, only this time, it is BJP and Congress rebels who joined forces.Denied tickets and angry at being overlooked, leaders from both parties came together to form a ‘parivartan' panel. BJP rebel Sachin Kamble and Sonali Ghodmare joined hands with Congress veterans, including former standing committee chairman Vijay Babre and grassroots leader Pooja Manmode. They are moving from ward to ward as a coordinated team, pooling workers, sharing expenses, and addressing voters together, with the single pitch that local leadership was ignored and must assert itself. Street-corner meetings draw mixed crowds of BJP and Congress loyalists. Campaign literature deliberately avoids party colours and stresses ‘self-respect' and ‘bahujan representation'. Door-knocking schedules are drawn up jointly, and volunteers say they are receiving as much support from disillusioned party voters as from Independents.Taken together, the Sena UBT-backed panel in ward 28 and the cross-party panel in Prabhag 31 capture the new mood of this election: Campaigns are becoming more about local deals than party lines.With January 15 approaching fast, senior leaders may still try to enforce discipline. But on the streets, where rallies, pamphlets, and public meetings now blend party symbols and rebel faces, it is clear the campaign moved far beyond the control of the high commands.