2017 BMC polls in mind, party eyes Marathi manoos, sharpens attack on BJP-Sena govt

With the cultural festival, which will include a Marathi book exhibition, a Marathi Kavi Sammelan and a musical, the city Congress plans to take the battle straight into the heartland of Sena, which has enjoyed a 22-year unbroken reign in the country’s richest civic corporation.

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The effort to reach out to Mumbai’s Marathi voters comes right on the back of Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam’s strident opposition to the draft Development Plan 2034 released by the BMC and his criticism of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for what Nirupam called backtracking on the promise to cancel the DP.

“He is cheating the people of Mumbai, having first promised to scrap the DP and then issuing a circular that only orders errors to be corrected before the DP is reissued,” Nirupam said, speaking at a press conference alongside former minister Narayan Rane on Monday.
The former Lok Sabha MP also accused the Sena-BJP of selling out Mumbai to the real estate lobby.

The aggression over the DP is the latest in a string of attempts by the Mumbai Congress to raise its game ahead of elections. Addressing all 52 Congress corporators on Monday, Nirupam and Rane had a one-point agenda — More belligerence in opposing the Sena-BJP in the BMC.

Nirupam has already instructed corporators to put on their most aggressive demeanour during debates and discussions in the BMC.

When six Congress corporators, all women, were handed a 15-day suspension in March for disrupting proceedings of the general body meeting, the seniors were all praise — they had finally found some fire in their belly.