Mumbai Congress begins deliberations over selecting new unit chief

With barely 15 months remaining for the crucial Mumbai civic polls, deliberations have begun within the Mumbai Congress to select a new leader for party’s city unit.

With barely 15 months remaining for the crucial Mumbai civic polls, deliberations have begun within the Mumbai Congress to select a new leader for party’s city unit.

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HK Patil, the party’s newly-appointed Maharashtra in-charge in the All India Congress Committee met senior leaders from the city to take stock of the current situation and get a sense of the names in the ring. Mumbai leaders have pressed for an immediate change in leadership and the need to go solo in the civic polls. The party’s current Mumbai president is Eknath Gaikwad, a veteran leader and former Member of Parliament (MP).

Patil, who was recently appointed as the state in-charge, replacing Mallikarjun Kharge, met sitting and former legislators, former ministers, incumbent and former city unit chiefs personally at the party’s Dadar office on Wednesday. Party leaders who met Patil included former MPs Priya Dutt, Hussain Dalwai, Bhalchandra Mungekar, city unit chief Eknath Gaikwad, former state ministers Suresh Shetty and Arif Naseem Khan, among others. Former MPs and Mumbai unit chief Milind Deora and Sanjay Nirupam could not attend the session as they were in Delhi.

“He tried to understand the party’s political standing in the city, where it was formed 135 years ago, and the measures to be taken for better performance in the 2022 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections. Most of the leaders he met have expressed the immediate need to change the leadership. The Mumbai unit has always been affected by factionalism or weak leadership. It now needs dynamic leadership and should be given at the earliest,” said a leader, on condition of anonymity.

Aspirants for the Mumbai Congress chief post are Bhai Jagtap, Arif Naseem Khan, Amarjeet Singh Manhas and Suresh Shetty. According to a former office-bearer of the Mumbai Congress, the aspirants and their supporters met Patil, who is now expected to submit his report to the party leadership in Delhi.

Another leader said that almost all the leaders pressed for the need to go solo in the BMC election, despite the Congress being part of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance along with the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

“We demanded to go solo for two reasons – firstly, we would not get the expected number of seats to contest if we fought the elections with two other parties. Joining hands with Sena in the local polls will also result in hurting our vote bank of minorities and Dalits and to some extent north Indians. It will also help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) if the three parties fought together,” he said.

Congress was reduced to 32 seats in the 2017 elections from the 52 seats it won in 2012. The civic polls in Mumbai are expected to be held in February 2022.