No alliance between Congress and NCP for BMC Elections, announced Ashok Chavan

The Congess made it clear that it will go enter into an alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party for the upcoming civic body polls. However, it would enter into an alliance for the council polls with the NCP.

 

Maharashtra Pradesh Congress committee (MPCC) chief Ashok Chavan announced there would be no alliance with the NCP in the coming BMC elections, on Monday.

 

“There is a limited possibility of both parties coming together. Our Mumbai leaders are not ready for it,” he said after a MPCC meeting in Mumbai to discuss the strategy for upcoming civic bodies and zilla panchayat elections. However, he added, “The final decision will be taken in Delhi.”

 

Monday’s meeting took place after NCP Chief Sharad Pawar made a public appeal to the Congress to form an alliance. At a rally in Satara recently Mr Pawar had said, “Looking at the output of recent municipal council elections, it would be wise for both Congress and NCP to go it together. But as Congress is the elder brother, it has to take a decision”.

 

Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam has been pushing for contesting elections without the NCP. “We have already said that we want to go it on our own. Now we will request the central leadership for the same and get approval” said Mr Nirupam.

 

He said the Congress will instead have a pre-poll alliance with an RPI group, led by Prof Jogendra Kapade. It also launched its solo campaign yesterday with a street play that makes a mockery of the Sena’s DidYouKnow campaign, which tells voters about the works done in the past five years. The theatre group, which staged its first performance at the MRCC office near Azad Maidan yesterday, is scripted about the bad governance of the city during the Sena regime. It asks the audience, at least a dozen times in a 15-minute show, if they knew about the city’s failing infrastructure and the Modi government’s failure in the demonetisation plan.