Mumbai, Mar 14 (IANS): Ahead of the upcoming local bodies elections, Maharashtra's Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) plans to hold a series of rallies in major poll-bound cities, party leaders said here on Monday.

Top leaders of Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, and Shiv Sena-UBT will unitedly reach out to the masses to speak on burning issues like inflation, joblessness, woes of farmers, how Eknath Shinde connived with Bharatiya Janata Party to topple the MVA regime in June 2022, and others.

The move comes after hectic deliberations among the top brass of the MVA which notched a major success in the recently-held Kasba Peth by-elections in Pune where it jointly trounced the BJP in its 3-decades old bastion.

The first of the proposed rallies shall be held on April 2 in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar followed by Nagpur on April 16.

On May 1, a major public rally is planned in Mumbai coinciding with the Maharashtra Day festivities, May 14 in Pune, May 28 in Kolhapur and June 3 in Nashik.

The three parties shall galvanise their workers and leaders to work together with mutual respect and display strength to uproot the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the ruling ally BJP in various civic bodies going to the polls, MVA leaders said.

NCP President Sharad Pawar, Sena-UBT President Uddhav Thackeray and Congress state President Nana Patole and others have cited the win in Pune as an example of how the BJP and its allies can be vanquished if the Opposition works in unison.

After these upcoming rallies in the regional headquarters, the three parties will fan out to hold similar meetings at district levels and in the remotest parts of the state from mid-2023, serving to kickstart the election process for Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in 2024.

MVA leaders like Thackeray, Pawar Sr., Leader of Opposition in Assembly Ajit Pawar, Leader of Opposition in Council Ambadas Danve, NCP state chief Jayant Patil, Patole, Chhagan Bhujbal, ex-CMs Prithviraj Chavan, Ashok Chavan and others have held deliberations on these aspects in the past few days.