Speculation on tie-up for civic polls gathers steam as Cong, NCP, Sena leaders meet today in Mumbai
Leaders of the three parties will meet in Mumbai on Tuesday to fine-tune their strategies ahead of the municipal council, municipal corporation and zila parishad polls.
"We want to firm up our alliance with the NCP and Shiv Sena for the civic polls," said state Congress’s chief spokesperson, Atul Londhe. (Photo: Facebook/Atul Londhe)
After repeatedly resisting the idea of a tie-up with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Shiv Sena for the civic polls in the state, the Maharashtra Congress now seems to be warming up to the possibility. To finalise the strategy for the polls, leaders of the three parties are likely to meet in Mumbai on Tuesday.
“We have been saying that a tie up with the NCP and the Shiv Sena is possible in civic polls only if our local units agree to it. Actually, there is no change in our stand. But we want to firm up our alliance with the NCP and the Shiv Sena for the civic polls and therefore, top leaders of three parties will meet and discuss the possibility of the tie-up,” State Congress chief spokesperson Atul Londhe told the Indian Express on Monday.
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NCP chief spokesperson Mahesh Tapase said, “Our stand is that if party’s district chief says that we have enough strength to contest local body polls on our own, then we will not have a tie-up with the Congress and the NCP. But if our district chief is in favour of such a tie-up, then we will go for it.”
The Shiv Sena (UBT), led by former CM Uddhav Thackeray, is also apparently keen to join hands with his Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies for the civic polls. Sena leaders, though, said a final decision on this count will be taken at a meeting with the Congress and NCP leaders. “We have not yet taken any decision regarding an alliance with the NCP and the Congress for civic polls. Our party chief will discuss it with both the parties to arrive at any decision regarding the alliance,” said MP Vinayak Raut of the Shiv Sena (UBT).
The other Sena faction (Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena), meanwhile, has already teamed up with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and is trying to rope in the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) led by Raj Thackeray. The MNS chief, though, at a press conference, remained elusive about such a prospect. BJP spokesperson Ashish Shelkar said he will place all facts before the MNS chief in this regard.
A Congress leader said there is unease among the MVA allies in the face of the BJP, Shinde Sena and MNS trying to forge alliance for all forthcoming polls. “If they are trying to come together, then it makes no sense for the constituents of the MVA to contest elections separately and allow division of votes. And therefore, there is a thinking among MVA leaders to firm up the three-party alliance for all the polls and present a united and strong force before the voters in Maharashtra. This will send out a strong signal,” said the senior leader.
Meanwhile, Uddhav Thackeray, jolted by the split in the Sena, has decided to hold review meetings regarding all the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. After the meetings, Thackeray, in a bid to revive his party, will start touring the state. “To begin, our party chief will hold a farmers’ rally in Buldhana on November 26,” said Raut.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
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