With people having a handy platform in the form of social media to discuss the election scenario, the poll rally hot spots in Mumbai, known for the public debates and deliberations, are losing their sheen.

The Chowpatty, Kamgar Maidan and Shivaji Park were earlier some of the large venues for election rallies in the country’s financial capital, which is known for delivering unpredictable and astonishing results at the ballot box.

Keeping with the changing times, fast growing technology and people’s inclination towards social media, BJP has created a Facebook page ‘Uttar Madhya Mumbai’ to give details of its candidate Poonam Mahajan’s campaigning.

Similarly, Mumbai North BJP candidate Gopal Shetty has a Facebook page with over 10,000 likes, sharing his campaigning with netizens.

NCP has an IT media setup for press conferences, while party chief Sharad Pawar’s Twitter handle is managed by experts where he speaks on key issues.

With polls in Mumbai scheduled on April 24, the campaigning by candidates is still restricted to padyatras and street-corner meetings instead of the high voltage rallies.

Congress candidate and Union minister Milind Deora, who is active on Twitter, lamented the current state of discourse in the country, calling it lacking in substance, and felt that the opinion cycles of people have shrunk.

“The manner in which we frame our opinion has changed drastically. Before 24×7 news channels, it was a 24-hour opinion cycle,” Deora said.

Old timers recall that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Jaiprakash Narayan used to address rallies in Mumbai which would be the talking point of election debates throughout the country like the Bangladesh war, Emergency.

“Elections were fought on issues and policies earlier. But, now campaigning is personality driven,” senior journalist Vasant Deshpande said.

“Rallies at Chowpatty, Shivaji Park have been banned. There is no open maidan (ground) for having political meetings in Mumbai now. Neither do people have time,” Deshpande said. Even posters, banners, painting of walls with poll slogans have since been banned by the Election Commission.

“Earlier, workshops, seminars were regularly held where candidates of all parties would be invited for debates and discussions. Mock parliament sessions would be held to create awareness among people about the proceedings of the Parliament sessions,” Deshpande recalled.

Election meetings have now been restricted to Somaiya ground in central Mumbai or MMRDA ground in Bandra-Kurla complex. Political parties complain that they are logistically inconvenient.

Several candidates have hired public relation agencies to provide information of their campaign to the media, sources said.

The most sensational election result had been in the 1967 Lok Sabha election where George Fernandes, the firebrand union leader beat S K Patil, known as the uncrowned king of Bombay. George would paint walls of south Mumbai to strike a chord with the voters, with slogans that Patil was not invincible and he could be defeated, Deshpande said.

In a clear snub to Raj Thackeray, the BJP has said it does not want “unsolicited support” from parties who want to ride on a perceived Narendra Modi wave. The party also said its partnership with the Shiv Sena is “unbreakable.”

At a public meeting in Pune on Tuesday, Mr. Singh said, “Our friendship with Shiv Sena is very old and will continue in future. These days, many parties are taking Modi’s name. Why are you offering your unsolicited support to us? You either become part of NDA (National Democratic Alliance) or merge with BJP.”

Raj Thackeray, who heads the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena or MNS, has said more than once that after the April-May election, his party will support Mr. Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.

The BJP chief, without naming Mr. Thackeray or the MNS, said, “no one should indulge in politics of misleading people.”

The unambiguous message to the MNS seems aimed at placating its oldest ally, Shiv Sena, which had reacted angrily to BJP’s overtures to Raj Thackeray last month.

The BJP went all out to reassure an upset Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray, who even received a call from Narendra Modi.

Raj Thackeray, the estranged younger cousin of Uddhav Thackeray, broke away from the Sena in 2005 to form his own party.

The BJP is widely tipped to win the national election, which ends May 12.

The feud between the Thackerays is likely to split voters in Maharashtra who are against the incumbent coalition of the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party. Nitin Gadkari, the former president of the BJP, says that it was to prevent this that he met Raj Thackeray at a five-star hotel in Mumbai, a meeting that left Uddhav Thackeray seething.

Raj Thackeray has announced seven candidates from his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena or MNS for the national election; six of them take on the Shiv Sena directly.

Two minor girls were allegedly raped in two separate incidents in Thane district, police said.

A four-and-a-half year old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by a 21-year-old man identified as Sohanlal Gauram, who has been arrested by police.

According to police, Gauram had spotted the girl playing outside her house in Parshan Kata locality of Boisar. He then lured her with a chocolate and then took her to his room and allegedly raped her there.

In another incident, a 14-year-old girl, who works at a brick kiln at Talonda of Bhiwandi tehsil, was allegedly sexually assaulted by Kamlakar Jadhav, 30, police said.

Jadhav took the girl to a nearby farm, where he allegedly raped her last night.

The accused is absconding and a case has been registered with Ganeshpuri police station.

The decommissioned aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy, INS Vikrant, which played an important role in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, has been sold for Rs. 60 crore.

“The auction process of INS Vikrant was completed last week and a company named IB Commercial Pvt Ltd won the bid,” said a defence source in Mumbai on Tuesday.

Earlier, the Maharashtra Government had expressed its inability to maintain Vikrant, the Indian Navy’s first aircraft carrier which was commissioned in 1961. It was decommissioned in January 1997.

The defence source said that once the money is paid, the company will have to tow the ship away from the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai, where it is anchored currently, within thirty days.

“Condition of the ship is so bad that it is not worth converting it into a museum,” the source said, adding that Navy would be able to use the space vacated by the ship in the Dockyard for some other fruitful purposes.

In January 2014, during the hearing of a public interest litigation which opposed the plan to scrap the ship, the Union Ministry of Defence told the Bombay High Court that it had completed its operational life.

While the Maharashtra government stated that to preserve it as a museum would not be viable financially.

The High Court subsequently dismissed the PIL.

The Majestic-class aircraft carrier, purchased from Britain in 1957, played a key role in enforcing the naval blockade of East Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971.

A public interest litigation has been filed in the Bombay High Court seeking for elections to be held in Satara on the same day as polls in Mumbai and Thane districts pursuant to the “ink” and “double vote” remark made by Union minister Sharad Pawar.

A criminal case has also been filed against Pawar in a Magistrate’s court here for making such a remark.

Pawar had recently told his supporters to vote twice after removing the indelible ink in the multi-phase Lok Sabha election in Maharashtra.

The NCP chief had, while addressing partymen in Navi Mumbai on March 23, asked them to take advantage of the multi-phase polling in the state by voting twice, first in their hometowns and then at places of work.

Social activist Pravin Wategaonkar today filed a PIL in the High Court against the NCP chief’s remark and sought for elections to be held in Satara on the same day as elections in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai.

Elections in Satara are scheduled on April 17 and in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai on April 24.

Wategaonkar mentioned the petition before a division bench of Justices A S Oka and Amjad Sayed which has posted it for hearing tomorrow.

“Last time (in 2009), the polling in Satara and Mumbai was on the same day and people went to their hometowns. But this time, polling in Satara is on April 17 and here on April 24,” Pawar had said, addressing a gathering of “mathadi” workers (head loaders) who hail from that district in western Maharashtra.

Pawar, who had received flak for the comment, had later said the remark was made in “a lighter vein and had a tinge of satire to it”.

Meanwhile, a social worker has filed a criminal case against Pawar in a Magistrate’s court at Mazgaon for making such a statement.

In a breather for actor Sanjay Dutt, the Bombay High Court has revoked the attachment of his flat in suburban Bandra.

The flat had been attached following the decision of Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) in his dispute with film-maker Shakeel Noorani.

Noorani had moved IMPPA in 2008 alleging his film ‘Jaan Ki Baazi’, for which he had paid Dutt Rs. 50 lakh in 2001, could not be completed because the actor did not give dates.

On January 28, 2010, IMPPA asked Dutt to either commit 30 days for the shooting or refund Rs. 50 lakh and pay an additional Rs. 1.53 crore by way of compensation to Noorani.

But Dutt failed to follow the order, so Noorani moved the High Court, seeking execution of the IMPPA order which provided for attachment of the actor’s flat if he did not pay.

In December 2010, Dutt’s flats were attached.

Hearing Dutt’s plea against the attachment, Justice B P Colabawalla had on April 7 this year ruled that the decision of IMPPA was not an “award” under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act and thus it cannot be enforced.

The court termed Noornai’s execution application as “an abuse of the process of the court”, revoked the attachment, and ordered the producer to pay cost of Rs. 1.50 lakh to Dutt.

Since IMPPA was only a private body, the “entire proceedings for the enforcement” of its award were meaningless, the High Court said.

Dutt is currently serving a 42-month sentence in Pune’s Yerwada prison for illegal possession of firearms in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case.