E-Paper
Mumbai Congress vows to go solo in civic body polls
Mumbai unit chief said the party needs to give justice to the aspirations of its workers by giving them an opportunity to contest the civic polls
Days after chief minister (CM) Uddhav Thackeray said that the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi, comprising his Shiv Sena, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), will contest all the civic polls unitedly, the Mumbai unit of the Congress vowed to contest the upcoming municipal corporation independently. The party also reiterated its disapproval of Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut’s criticism of the Congress leadership and call for a need of change in the leadership of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
On the occasion of the party’s foundation day, newly appointed Mumbai Congress chief Ashok Jagtap and working president Charan Singh Sapra took charge at a function organised at YB Chavan centre on Monday. The function was attended by party’s state in-charge HB Patil, Maharashtra Congress chief Balasaheb Thorat, state ministers Ashok Chavan, Aslam Shaikh and Varsha Gaikwad as well as city unit’s newly appointed manifesto committee chief Suresh Shetty, campaign committee chief Arif Naseem Khan, coordination committee chief Amarjeet Singh Manhas and other senior leaders.
Most of the Mumbai leaders have thrusted upon contesting all the 227 wards in the city independently, without joining hands with Sena and NCP. Jagtap said the party needs to fight solo to give justice to the aspirations of its workers by giving them an opportunity to contest the civic polls.
“They are the foot soldiers in Assembly and Parliament elections and ensure that party candidate wins. If they aspire to contest the civic polls, it would be wrong to limit the aspiration. I would request the party leadership to allow us to contest in all wards,” he said.
Thorat said it is the time to give BMC a Congress mayor.
“The party has capacity to elect its mayor in Mumbai if the elections are fought unitedly. We will leave no stone unturned to achieve this,” he said.
Echoing his sentiment, Khan said, “All the party workers in the city want to fight the BMC polls independently and elect our mayor in Mumbai.”
The leaders of the party’s Mumbai unit are wary that they may get fewer seats to contest on if the polls are fought in alliance with Sena and NCP.
“Also, our traditional vote banks of Muslim and north Indian voters will deviate if we join hands with Sena. It will indirectly benefit the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party),” said a leader from the city unit.
Patil, too, assured the unit that the decision to go solo or with allies will be taken only after taking local leaders into confidence.
“There will be no final decision taken by the central leadership without consulting the leadership of the Mumbai unit,” he said.
He also took a dig at Raut for attacking the Congress leadership. “Leaders or parties that are not part of UPA have no business to speak about the alliance,” he said.
Raut had recently raised questions over the leadership of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and had also expressed the need for the change of guard in UPA leadership.
Chavan said the state government exists only because of the Congress support, while Khan claimed that his party joined hands with Sena and NCP to keep BJP away from power, and it will operate on the basis of common minimum programme (CMP).
“It is the responsibility of all the coalition partners to run the government and it should be based only on CMP. It was decided while forming the government that ruling parties will not weaken each other. Despite this, our corporators are poached [referring to NCP’s induction of 18 Congress corporators in Bhiwandi]. Now it is the responsibility of CM to ensure that ruling parties do not indulge in poaching each other’s leaders,” he said.
