Mumbai: There was a time when civic polls were passionately fought over everyday concerns that truly mattered to citizens – potholes, roads, water shortage, waste disposal, medical facilities and ward-level grievances. But the municipal elections in Maharashtra, which last took place in 2017, is now slowly veering towards a communal angle, with parties on both the ruling and opposition sides raising issues that have no bearing on the city or on the state or country’s welfare. A case in point is the fact that the inclusion of a Bangladeshi cricketer Mustafizur Rahman in the Kolkata Knight Riders IPL team is a civic election issue.As Shah Rukh Khan-led KKR finalised a Bangladeshi cricketer in the team, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Bal Thackarey) spokesperson Anand Dubey slammed the actor, and linked the choice of the cricketer to “national security concerns”. Now, the BCCI has reportedly instructed KKR to release Mustafizur Rahman from their roster for the IPL 2026 season.In the past, several parties, more prominently the Bharatiya Janata Party has called for the boycott of Pakistani players, but the boycott of Bangladeshi players is a first.Dubey, as a spokesperson for Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena party, has otherwise said nothing substantial about the civic concerns of Mumbai or any of the other 28 districts where the polls will take place in a single phase on January 15.He was not the only one. Shaina N.C., national spokesperson for Shiv Sena (Shinde faction, formerly associated with the BJP), also jumped in. On January 2, she said the attacks on minorities in Bangladesh should be responded to “befittingly.” Referencing specific cases like the killings of Dipu Chandra Das and Amrit Mondal, she linked the selection of the Bangladeshi cricketer to the “timing.”The timing, for sure, cannot be missed. Raking up communal issues right before elections is a textbook tactic. And parties appear to be invoking Bangladesh not only for the civic elections in Maharashtra – the West Bengal assembly polls are scheduled in the coming months.The trope of “Bangladeshi intruders” is an old election plank for the Shiv Sena. For the upcoming elections, Uddhav Thackeray has forged an alliance with his cousin Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). Although Raj Thackeray has not reacted on the KKR issue so far, he has a long history of strong anti-immigration rhetoric focused on alleged “Bangladeshi intruders” in Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra. He tied this to his larger “Marathi manoos” agenda. In the past year, both Raj Thackeray and his party workers have targeted Bengali-speaking Muslims by conflating them with Bangladeshis.Confusing alliancesMaharashtra politics underwent a sharp change after the 2018 state assembly elections. The natural allies – BJP and Shiv Sena – fell apart and Sena (then under Uddhav Thackeray’s leadership) joined hands with the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party. Since then, both the Sena and NCP have disintegrated and Maharashtra now has two Senas and two NCPs. The Shinde-led Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP are in alliance with the BJP in the state and Uddhav’s Sena and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP are in the opposition.In the civic polls, however, these distinctions have blurred, so have the so- called ideological differences. Both the ruling Mahayuti and opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) have landed in utter chaos. In some districts, they are fighting the elections with their allies and in some places, the allies are pitted as main opponents.Take for example, the BJP and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena. While they have managed to forge alliances in the main districts like Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan-Dombivili, in the immediate neighbouring Mira-Bhayander and Navi Mumbai, they are opponents. The Mahayuti’s other ally, Ajit Pawar’s NCP, is contesting alone in Mumbai. In his home turf Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, Ajit Pawar has decided to go along with his uncle Sharad Pawar’s NCP faction (which is in opposition in the state) but has retained an alliance with the BJP in Ahilyanagar and Kolhapur. Similar confusing alliances are seen in almost every district. The Mahayuti alliances have fractured in at least 24 of 29 corporations and the MVA partners are together in only 17.The Congress which had earlier announced that it would contest elections solo in Mumbai, joined hands with Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), allocating it 62 seats. This was a last-minute shift, aimed at consolidating Dalit and minority votes amid MVA fractures. These permutations and combinations have very little to do with these parties’ politics or ideology. They are more about their political survival in an otherwise volatile state that has seen parties’ fracture into factions and leaders jump ship.