Maharashtra civic polls: BJP bags Dhule, Sena gets Ahmednagar

With 15 of 27 civic corporations under control, BJP stays face of urban mandate

The saffron parties scored a win on Monday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning the Dhule civic body and Shiv Sena emerging as the largest party in Ahmednagar civic corporation.

Shiv Sena workers celebrate their victory in Ahmednagar. (HT)

The results to the two civic body polls in north Maharashtra come as a dampener for the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) combine, which is gearing up to challenge the BJP in the 2019 polls.

The BJP wrested the Dhule civic body from the control of the NCP by winning 50 of the 74 seats. In the last polls in 2013, BJP’s tally here was in single digits at 3 seats.

The BJP’s sweeping victory, despite rebellion in its ranks, left NCP with 8 seats, Congress with 6 seats and the Sena with only one seat.

Rebel legislator Anil Gote’s outfit Loksangram managed to win only one seat in the Dhule civic body. Gote, who is unlikely to get a ticket from the BJP in the coming Assembly polls, said BJP’s win was owing to “EVM tinkering and illicit use of money”.

With Dhule, the BJP now has control over 15 of the 27 civic corporations in the state and continues to be the face of the urban mandate.

In Ahmednagar, the Shiv Sena emerged as the largest party after it won 24 of the 68 seats. The NCP, Congress and BJP won 18, 5 and 14 seats, respectively.

The Sena will retain control of the civic body if it aligns with the BJP.

“In Dhule, the BJP managed to jump to 50 seats from three seats. We will deliver on our promise of a transparent and development-oriented corporation in Dhule, given the trust the citizens have placed on us. In Ahmednagar, we did not get the desired results and we will deliberate why we fell short there,” said chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

The BJP had pulled out all stops for the polls and placed responsibility of Dhule on three ministers from the region – water resources minister Girish Mahajan, tourism minister Jaykumar Rawal and Union Minister Dr Subhash Bhamre.

The poor show of the Congress and NCP is reflection on their senior leadership and should be a cause for worry ahead of the next year’s polls.

For instance, the party’s senior leader and leader of Opposition in the Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil was given the responsibility for Ahmednagar polls; his son Sujay is aiming for a Lok Sabha ticket from here. However, under Vikhe’s watch, the party’s tally in the Ahmednagar corporation went down to 5 from 11.

In both the cities, the Congress and NCP had a pre-poll tie-up, but failed to defeat the saffron parties that fought separately.

However, Congress state president Ashok Chavan termed BJP’s victory in Dhule as win of immoral means.

“The BJP has worked out a winning formula in local polls by making use of illicit and wrong means from using money power, giving tickets to goons, poaching on candidates of other parties and ignoring all election commission norms,” said Chavan.

He also defended his party’s performance here. “The Congress had limited strength in both these civic bodies. For the past 15 years, our party has not contested from the Assembly segments in these cities as they are in the NCP quota.”

NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said the BJP’s win in Dhule is on the strength of its “imported candidates”.

“In Dhule, they paid and imported as many as 50 candidates from other parties. In Ahmednagar, they used the same modus operandi. This kind of victory is no testament to the party’s popularity,” said Malik.