Mumbai is gearing up for the assembly election which is slated to be held on October 21. India's financial capital has 36 assembly constituencies which will see prestige fight between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena alliance and the opposition Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) coalition.
According to the Hindustan Times, BJP-Sena alliance is focussing on infrastructure and other developmental work in the past five years and is looking for a clean sweep. While on the other hand the Opposition, Congress-NCP, is battling infighting and desertion of some senior faces. BJP leader Yogesh Sagar, who is contesting from the Charkop constituency and who was the junior urban development minister, told the leading daily, “The Congress-NCP had their chance but they did not do anything for 15 years. We are confident that the people of Mumbai and Maharashtra will bring us back in power.”
But the Congress has denied that saying they did push for infrastructure development in Mumbai. Sachin Sawant, Maharashtra Congress spokesperson told the Hindustan Times, “It is incorrect to say that we have not pushed infrastructure development in Mumbai. We created metro masterplan, we constructed the Bandra Worli sea link, the Eastern Freeway which is a toll free road, we started the Navi Mumbai Airport. We focused on all modes of transportation while they are busy giving Metro contracts tainted companies. The International Financial Service Centre, which would have helped economy, has not come up in Mumbai. It was stopped because of GIFT City in Gujarat. The Shivaji Memorial and Ambedkar Memorial are also not delivered.”
The two alliances, BJP-Shiv Sena and Congress-NCP, have declared candidates for the state assembly polls. While the Shiv Sena has repeated most of their candidates, on the other hand the BJP has dropped its cabinet minister Vinod Tawde and Rajkumar Purohit from its list. Meanwhile, the NCP-Congress combine has suffered losses due to infighting and desertion of some senior faces and have put up lesser-known faces.
