RPI (A) chief Ramdas Athavale stakes claim to 60 seats in BMC Polls

Ramdas Athavale led Republican Party of India(A), will be contesting the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections in alliance with the BJP with atleast 60 seats to its kitty. Ramdas Athavale also said that all candidates of the party will contest on the party symbol.

 

“I am hopeful that BJP and Shiv Sena would join hands before the elections so that we all three can contest jointly. In such scenario, we will be able to win around 200 seats. If Shiv Sena doesn’t join hands with BJP, then RPI (A) will join hands with BJP as we have already done in Assembly elections,” added Athavale.

 

He recalled RPI (A) had won 29 seats in BMC in 1992 as a Congress ally and their candidate had became Mayor of Mumbai. “This clearly means that RPI has some decisive votes in Mumbai city and our ally is going to benefit out of it. But, we are going to make it clear that our candidates will contest elections on our symbols and not on our ally’s symbols. There have been such incidents, where our ally had made our candidate to contest the election on their symbol. We will not tolerate it anymore,” Athavale said.

 

 

He said he had so far received around 350 applications from aspirants willing to contest the BMC polls on RPI ticket.

 

“Party’s (RPI-A’s) plan is to offer tickets to those who have capacity to win. In this case, we may allow someone from outside to contest election on our symbol, but RPI’s eligible candidate on all fronts will not be disappointed,” he said.