Mumbai: A “Did you know?” campaign highlighting Shiv Sena’ development work during its rule in the civic body, in alliance with the BJP, has triggered a slogan war with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which has come up with a “You should know” poster to point out the failings in the civic administration.

Elections for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will be held on February 21, and political parties are battle-ready to control the wealthy civic body.

The Shiv Sena has the highest number of seats at 89 in the 227-member civic body and is in alliance with the BJP (32 members), though it has been loggerheads with its partner since the latter wants to fight many more seats this time.

Aaditya Thackeray, through his Twitter account, kick-started the campaign with, “Didyouknow — 18,000 public school students have educational tabs to learn with. It’s a great way to lose 5 kgs.”

Another slogan informed, “Mumbai is the first to have best digital virtual education platform in the country frm 2013.”

And, “Didyouknow ‘Mumbai’s 480 BMC classrooms are uplinked to enable 2-way video conference learning. Technology is a new language in BMC schools,” said yet another poster.

But this effort to reach out to even non-Marathi speaking voters was lampooned by NCP president Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, an MP, who launched a #You Should Know poll catchline.

An NCP poster installed in the city read: “Didyouknow? [For] 22 years Mumbai has been driving on pothole-ridden streets. Mumbaikars are equally responsible says Mayor. Now Shiv Sena-BJP say ‘Drive Swiftly.’ But where will you go? Into the pothole?”

The last line of the poster says, “Enough is enough. We need change, we need progress.”

The Congress, too, is not far away and wants to expose the Sena and BJP.

Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam says his party would also come up with posters asking “Did you know about the corruption in BMC? And ‘Did you know a penguin died in Byculla Zoo?’”

An angry Sena has threatened to complain to the Election Commission if facts are manipulated.

Penguins were brought to Byculla Zoo from South Korea with much fanfare and expense but the issue became a controversy when one of them died.

However, Nirupam says that it is time Shiv Sena answered many questions regarding corruption in city.

“We will display posters in city, asking ‘did you know a penguin died, did you know Marathi schools are closing down and did you know corruption of Rs9,000 crores (Dh4.85 billion or Rs90 billion) has taken place in the BMC?”

Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) is also catching up with this slogan war and is targeting a tagline “The time has still not gone”, posing itself as an alternative to the Sena. The MNS had split from the Sena more than a decade ago but failed badly in both assembly and BMC elections in the past.