PUNE : The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) has blamed the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for delaying the municipal elections by going to court against the election process.
“The state government is not responsible for delaying the municipal elections. It is the NCP that went to the Supreme Court (SC) against the election process. The elections are getting delayed due to the NCP,” BJP Maharashtra president Chandrashekhar Bawankule said on Thursday when the media raised questions about the civic polls and asked why the state government was delaying them. Bawankule was interacting with the media on the sidelines of the BJP state executive committee meeting, the focus of which was the assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
“When the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) was in power, they carried out ward delimitation as per the 2021 Census before arriving at the fresh Census figure. After the BJP and Eknath Shinde came to power, they changed the delimitation and decided to consider the old population figures, directing that elections be conducted as per the previous system,” Bawankule said.
The BJP Maharashtra president further said that they are ready to face elections any time and that the BJP and Shinde-led Shiv Sena would win the municipal corporation elections.
Meanwhile, NCP Maharashtra president Jayant Patil countered Bawankule’s swipe saying, “The state government is intentionally delaying the municipal elections. Despite our demand, they are not ready for it as they are worried they will be defeated like in Karnataka. The MVA openly challenges the state government to conduct the polls.”