Shiv Sena, on Tuesday, defeated the candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to win the post of chairpersons for the improvement committee in the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the management committee of the BrihanMumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking.
Senior Shiv Sena corporator Sadanand Parab defeated BJP's Swapna Mhatre by three votes, to get re-elected as the chairperson for the improvement committee for the third time in a row.
Meanwhile, in the BEST committee, senior Shiv Sena corporator Ashish Chemburkar defeated BJP's Prakash Gangadhare to get elected for the post of chairperson for the fifth time. Chemburkar said that reviving the financial condition of the BEST is going to be one of his important agendas in his tenure.
"BEST has emerged to become the lifeline of the city amidst the pandemic. Now, our agenda will be to augment its fleet to make it more user friendly and, at the same time, develop its financial status," said Chemburkar.
Even though Congress had filed its nomination earlier last week, they had withdrawn their candidature during the last moment before the polling began.
Ravi Raja, senior Congress corporator and Leader of Opposition in BMC, said that being the opposition leader, it was a formality to file the nomination. "We didn't have the numbers, so there's no point in contesting the polls. Being the opposition, we haven't supported the Shiv Sena and have maintained a neutral stand," said Raja, who had filed his nomination for the BEST chairperson’s post.
Meanwhile, BJP had slammed the Congress for drawing its candidature at the last moment. "Congress brags about being the opposition party in BMC, while here we see them support the Shiv Sena indirectly instead of putting a check on their corrupted malpractices," Vinod Mishra, group leader of BJP said.
