MUMBAI: In a jolt to the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the MNS, their panel has lost all 21 seats in the election to the BEST Employees Cooperative Credit Society Ltd, a platform where the two parties came together amid a buzz about a pan-Maharashtra alliance.Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis accused the Sena (UBT)-MNS of politicising the credit society polls around the “Thackeray brand”. The defeat prompted the BJP to mock the “Thackeray brand”, saying it has turned to ‘zero’.Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut downplayed the defeat, saying he had no information about the results. “The Thackeray brand can never fail. The credit society election is neither a final exam nor a unit test (for the upcoming local body polls),” Raut said.Suhas Samant, president of the BEST Kamgar Sena, aligned with the Sena (UBT), told PTI on Wednesday that the “defeat of all its 21 candidates was shocking”.The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Sena (UBT), headed by cousins Raj and Uddhav Thackeray, respectively, came together on one platform to contest the election, seen as a precursor to a possible alliance between the two parties.Voting was held on Monday for the election to the cooperative credit society linked to the employees of the civic undertaking Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST), which runs the city’s ubiquitous red buses.Counting began on Tuesday and continued till late at night.A usually low-key and obscure election, the Sena (UBT) envisaged it to make the election a platform to showcase the unity of the two Thackeray cousins, a Sena (UBT) leader said.
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