This was resolved at a meeting held on Monday. The Shiv Sena submitted its letter to the State Election Commissioner and returning officer to withdraw the symbols allotted to the candidates. However, with this not being done as they had not adhered to the due date for withdrawal, the party has directed its candidates to not campaign for themselves.

Sena spokesperson Neelam Gorhe told The Indian Express that they had forwarded the letter on withdrawing the symbol of their candidates to both the state election officer and the returning officer for that panel, stating it was an oversight and the seats belonged to their alliance partner, BJP. “This was not accepted. Thus, we have told the candidates to campaign for the BJP candidate,” said Gorhe. This dispute was seeing the alliance partners at loggerheads with BJP taking a firm stand not to campaign for the Sena and even threatening not to have any joint campaigns ahead of the municipal corporation polls.

The BJP had written to the Sena leaders in the state regarding this step of the Sena candidates getting the A-B forms as well as the symbol. The BJP senior candidates had taken up the issue with their candidates already selected. The seat-sharing deal saw BJP contest on 79 seats against Sena’s 57 seats. The letter from the Sena to the election department states that the candidates selected for Panel 26, 27 and 72 Kishore Vithekar, Ankush Tikde and Deepali Oswal and in the Pimpri-Chinchwad area_Panel 23, panel 47 and panel 11 Devram Gawade, Jayashree Sutar and Sangeeta Shyam Pawar will not contest for themselves but will campaign for the BJP candidate.

“The decision also mentions that no campaign would be conducted by the Sena for these candidates respecting the BJP seat-sharing,” added Gorhe in the new development.

The issue had heated up with both the alliance partners not only having candidates filing their nomination forms but also getting the A-B forms as well as the symbol of the party. In 72, according to the nominations filed, BJP’s Prabhavati Matale would take on Deepali Oswal of Sena, for panel 26 Kishore Vithekar from SS against Ajay Marne from BJP and for panel 27 SS candidate Ankush Tidke had filed the nomination against BJP candidate Dr Sandeep Butala.