BMC PUZZLE With the Shiv Sena and the BJP fighting over Mayor’s post, other parties are busy weighing their options.
Mumbai : As the battle over the Mayor’s post between the Shiv Sena and the BJP continues, Maharashtra politics could well take a sharp turn. The Congress with the third-largest block of 31 corporators in the 227-seat Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is suddenly in focus.
The Congress think tank in the state has worked out a strategy to put the Sena at the helm in BMC while dealing a blow to the BJP. The plan is to get all 31 party corporators to abstain during the voting for the Mayor’s post. Sharad Pawar’s NCP, the Samajwadi Party and the MIM corporators will follow suit. With the guaranteed support of the MNS, the Sena candidate expects to sail through in the mayoral elections. Sources said that Ashok Chavan, chief of the state Congress, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, leader of the opposition in the state Assembly, and senior party leader Narayan Rane could send feelers to the Shiv Sena in this regard.
Of course, the Sena will have to pay a price for all this support. In return, the Congress expects that the Sena will pull the plug on the Devendra Fadnavis government before the beginning of the budget session on March 6.
Congress sources say that the party will in no way support the Sena directly. It will remain in the background and yet would have achieved its mission. Whether such a plan will have the seal of approval of the Congress high command is anybody’s guess.
So, in public, state Congress leaders like Sanjay Nirupam and Gurudas Kamat has been saying that Congress support to Sena is a pipedream. Naseem Khan, the party’s state vice-president, said, “Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi will never go with the Shiv Sena.”
But will Uddhav Thackeray agree to the deal? “Our president has been saying that he would respect the sentiments of the Sena cadres,”
The BJP is also weighing its options. Party’s spokesperson Madhav Bhandari said the Sena will never pull out of the government. “Even if they do, we have a strength of 122 MLAs of our own and the support of 17 others.
