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| Congress, NCP engage in blame game after loss in BMC polls | | Chief minister, state leaders may be soon summoned to Delhi |
| Sanjay Jog / Mumbai Feb 20, 2012, 00:26 IST |
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The blame game has begun in the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) after being defeated by the Shiv Sena-BJP-RPI combine in the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation elections. The Congress and the NCP were partners in the elections to the country’s richest civic body.
Former chief minister and state industries minister Narayan Rane openly criticised the Congress party's inability to project a united fight and observed that the campaign was marked by a lack of coordination and projection of Marathi-speaking leaders like him to take on the Shiv Sena in particular.
NCP leader and state rural development minister Jayant Patil claimed that internal bickering in the Congress and an absence of its coordination with NCP were largely responsible for the defeat. An NCP general secretary, who did not want to identified, held the party’s Mumbai unit chief Narendra Varma responsible for the poor performance.
The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance won 110 seats. The Congress won 51 and ally NCP pocketed 14.
Congress high command has expressed its displeasure at the performance and has sought a detailed report. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan — who had made a statement that after the Mumbai civic elections the Shiv Sena and its chief Bal Thackeray would become inconsequential and insignificant — and the state party chief Manikrao Thakre are expected to meet the party bosses in Delhi this week. Mumbai city chief Kripa Shankar, who was under attack from party members and targetted by the Shiv Sena, would also be summoned to New Delhi to explain the debacle.
Both the parties admitted that Shiv Sena's campaign against the Congress and the NCP for fighting the elections under the leadership of non-Marathi helped the former consolidate its position.
The Congress move to field a larger number of non-Marathis, especially from North India, in 169 seats led to disgruntlement as more than 40 rebels contested and hampered electoral prospects of the official nominees. Similarly, NCP members were agitated against the party’s decision to nominate relatives of the ministers, legislators and other leaders in 58 seats. Several NCP leaders campaigned against the party nominee.
State Congress president Manikrao Thakre told Business Standard: “We accept the outcome of the Mumbai civic body elections. Our campaign should have been more focused and with further coordination. Shiv Sena took up the non-Marathi leadership issue.” Senior party leaders and ministers would meet to make a detailed review on what went wrong. “So far, we have not been called by the party high command but we will certainly put up our argument,” he added.
Thakre said Congress and NCP leaders met on Saturday evening and reviewed the post-result situation. “Congress and NCP leaders are unanimous that both will help each other to assume power in municipal corporations and zilla parishads. Both agreed not to seek support from Shiv Sena-BJP to assume power in civic and local bodies where they fall short of numbers.”
State NCP chief Madhukar Pichad, who was also present at Saturday’s meeting, said: "NCP president Sharad Pawar has convened a meeting of senior party leaders on Monday to take stock of the situation and decide the party’s strategy to share power with Congress or support the latter where the numbers are inadequate. We will get back to Congress after we take a decision in this regard.” He said that the NCP has maintained its top slot in the elections to 10 municipal corporations, 27 zilla parishads and 309 panchayat samitis after the party had surpassed Congress by winning 1,124 seats in 195 municipalities.
According to Pichad, NCP won 267 seats of the 1,244 in 10 municipal corporations, 541 seats of the 1,639 seats in 27 zilla parishads and 1,033 seats of the 3,248 seats in 309 panchayat samitis.
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