Congress, NCP (SP) Move To Form Secular Front In Bhiwandi; BJP Calls Defectors ‘Non-Entities’

Mumbai: The Congress on Thursday said it was set to form a “secular front” to capture power in the Bhiwandi Nizampur City Municipal Corporation, with support from the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar faction) and a group of corporators who have left the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Majority Within Reach

State Congress president Harshvardhan Sapkal said the party, which emerged as the single largest formation with 30 seats in the 90-member civic body, had secured the backing of 12 corporators from the NCP (SP) but needed four more members to reach a majority. He asserted that the Congress had refused to ally with the BJP or the Shiv Sena faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, maintaining that ideological compromise for power was not acceptable.

Defections Boost Alliance

Sapkal said some BJP corporators had now quit the party and joined the proposed secular alliance, paving the way for the election of both the mayor and deputy mayor from the front. Party observers would soon be sent to Bhiwandi to hold consultations with alliance partners before a final decision on key civic posts is taken, he added.

Talks With Allies

NCP (SP) MP Suresh Mhatre, also known as Balyamama, said efforts to form a Congress-NCP secular front had been underway for nearly 24 days. Talks were held with the Samajwadi Party, but it chose to align with the Shinde-led Shiv Sena. With several BJP corporators now joining the alliance, the path to forming the civic administration had become clearer, he said.

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BJP Dismisses Rebels

Reacting to reports of defections, senior BJP leader Ashish Shelar said those leaving the party were “non-entities” and could not be considered rebels.

“A person who abandons the party’s ideology does not belong to the BJP. Only those who honestly follow the party’s principles are true workers,” he said, adding that he would seek detailed information before the state leadership takes an appropriate decision.

Seat Tally Breakdown

In the recently concluded election to the 90-member Bhiwandi-Nizampur civic body, Congress won 30 seats, followed by the BJP with 22, Shiv Sena with 12, NCP (SP) with 12, the Samajwadi Party with six, KVA with four and Bhiwandi Vikas Aghadi with three, besides one Independent. The evolving post-poll alignments are now expected to determine control of the municipal corporation.

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