Who will be BJP city chief?

City chief and MLA Gopal Shetty,vice-presidents,general secretaries,secretaries,MLAs,past presidents and central office-bearers from Mumbai would meet to take a decision,said a party functionary.

BJP Maharashtra in-charge and Rajya Sabha MP Venkaiah Naidu is likely to arrive in the city to announce the name.

The leaders are expected to consider issues like whether the selected candidate should be a Maharashtrian or non-Maharashtrian considering the possibility of Raj Thackeray’s MNS playing the spoiler by cornering Marathi votes. Other aspects which will be looked into include experience of working at the grassroots,organisational ability and oratorical skills.

Former MLA Raj Purohit,corporator Ashish Shelar,Jaiprakash Thakur,former MLC Madhu Chavan,BJP Mumbai general secretary Atul Bhatkhalkar,former corporator Parag Alavani and former deputy mayor Rajesh Sharma are said to be contenders. Shelar,Purohit and Thakur,party sources said,have emerged frontrunners.

The party is trying avoid a repeat of 2008,when discontent over the then MLC Madhu Chavan’s election as Mumbai BJP chief had snowballed into a revolt with former deputy chief minister and present Beed MP Gopinath Munde quitting his party posts alleging he was being sidelined.

Apparently to avoid such disputes,the party is attempting to build a broad consensus while appointing the Mumbai BJP chief. This is a departure from the usual of a few leaders deciding the nominee.

In April 2008,as Munde revolted against Nitin Gadkari,who was the state chief then and general secretary Vinod Tawade,most party functionaries in the state had chosen to follow suit. Later,the two warring groups were forced to hammer out a compromise wherein Madhu Chavan was dropped in favour of Shetty.