In Mahim, Sarvankar will be pitted against Sena candidate, prominent Marathi actor Aadesh Bandekar, who joined the party only last fortnight.

Besides Sarvankar, another senior leader Gajanan Kirtikar, a former minister and sitting MLA, was denied a ticket. He had contested the May 2009 Lok Sabha elections on a Sena ticket but lost to the Congress' Gurudas Kamat.

Dissidence has affected Shiv Sena's ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also. While a senior city leader Atul Bhatkalkar has been dropped, a leader from the coastal Konkan region, Vinay Natu, rebelled after the party conceded the Guhagar seat (Ratnagiri district) to the Shiv Sena.

While Ramdas Kadam, leader of opposition in the outgoing assembly, will contest as a Sena candidate from Guhagar, Natu may stand as Independent.

The opposition Shiv Sena and the BJP are contesting the polls together with the Sena fighting for 169 seats. The BJP is contesting 119 seats in the 288-member state assembly.

In the 2004 elections, the Shiv Sena had contested on 171 seats and the BJP 117. The alliance had jointly bagged 119 seats against the Congress-Nationalist Congress party's tally of 139.