Civic body polls in Feb

The ruling Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have launched a massive exercise to consolidate their positions in the elections to the 27 zilla parishad slated for February 7 and for 10 municipal corporations on February 16.

The elections for 309 panchayat samitis would also take place on February 7. The dates were announced by State Elections Commissioner Neela Satyanarayan on Tuesday. The code of conduct has been put in place, whereby the government cannot make any policy announcements or reshuffle officials in the administration.

Despite sharing power, the Congress and the NCP have taken a decision to contest the elections independently with exception of the civic bodies of Mumbai, Thane and Nashik and some zilla parishads.

The elections are being held in the wake of the recent victory by the Congress and the NCP in the polls to the 195 municipalities where neither the Anna Hazare factor nor the anti-incumbency worked in favour of opposition Shiv Sena-BJP and their new ally, the Republican Party of India (Athavale).

Immediately after the announcement of the election dates, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan along with the state Congress president Manikrao Thakre held a marathon meeting to give finishing touches to the party’s electoral strategy. A Congress minister told Business Standard: “The party is ready for the ensuing elections which are being looked as a mini-Assembly elections. We will reach out to voters on the issues of the development and transparent administration. The opposition has miserably failed in their attempt to defeat us, as witnessed in the elections to the 195 municipalities.”

NCP legislator Prakash Bhinsale said the party, which has emerged as the number one by winning 1,124 of the 4,240 seats in the 195 municipalities, will repeat its performance in the coming elections. “NCP is in favour of development and its ministers are working hard for a slew of development projects across the state. We will approach the voters on the same issue. The voters have experienced NCP’s pro-development role and we are confident to once again show similar performance,” he noted.

The BJP and the Shiv Sena with the RPI (Athavale) are reworking their strategy to effectively take on the Congress and the NCP. Shiv Sena, which is ruling Mumbai civic body for over two decades, has made it a prestige issue and was involved in show casing its achievements to Mumbaikars.

The BJP has to overcome intra-party wranglings.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which has won 36 seats in 195 municipalities, is focussing on Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik.