Sena expects no more exits, hopes to retain BMC

The Shiv Sena, gearing up for the crucial electoral battle to retain the Mumbai civic body, on Monday said it does not expect any more desertions from its top rank.

"Those who have left the party have gone. But there will be no further exits from the party fold," Sena's recently appointed spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Manohar Joshi told reporters in Mumbai.

The 40-year-old party saw the exit of senior leaders like Narayan Rane and Raj Thackeray in 2005. Another Sena leader Sanjay Nirupam, who enjoys support of nearly 40-lakh north Indians living in Mumbai, had also quit the party.

While Rane and Nirupam joined the Congress, Raj, who is Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray's cousin, floated his own outfit early last year.

The former Lok Sabha speaker expressed confidence that the Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party combine will retain power in the politically important BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation, which is going to the polls on February 1.

For the first time in the party's history, Sena chief Bal Thackeray, who turns 80 on January 23, recently appointed spokespersons. On Monday, Joshi and three other spokespersons briefed the media at the party office in central Mumbai.