Cong plays cool as Sena-BJP bicker over seats for MLC polls

While the State Parliamentary Board of the Maharashtra Congress began interviews of candidates at its party headquarters this afternoon, according to reliable sources in the Sena party, supremo Bal Thackeray, his son Uddhav and nephew Raj are likely to meet with BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan and Chief Minister Manohar Joshi only on December 8 for the purpose.

Thackeray leaves for Lucknow on December 9 to mark attendance at the designated court which is hearing the case of the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya. Nominations for the council elections close on December 10.

The MLC elections are being considered crucial as they will be the final test of strength between the Sena-BJP alliance and the Congress before the Lok Sabha elections. All seats are being contested from the local self-government bodies and their support, according to political observers, are likely to influence the results of the parliamentary polls as well.

The Congress appears to be playing cool. The party claims that there has been a sea change in the attitudes of people since the last LS polls and that the percentages at the LSGs indicate that the advantage is with the Congress. While it might seek alliances with the Dalit parties and Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party in the LS polls, it has little problems now as it is going these elections alone.

The Sena and the BJP, on the other hand, seem to have hit a trouble spot over the sharing of the seats. While they are expected to divide the seats equally between themselves, taking four each, the final decision is being put off on account of a raging dispute between two senior leaders of either party over the Nagpur seat. Sena’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Nirupam has been adamant that the Sena be given this seat as he sees it crucial to the growth of his party in Vidarbha.

However, District Guardian Minister Nitin Gadkari has been equally adamant that the seat should go to the BJP as it has the greater numbers in the LSGs in the region. Both have decided to refer the matter to Thackeray as the final arbiter of the dispute. The Congress hopes to take advantage of this dispute and walk away with the piece of cheese, instead.

According to MPCC president Ranjit Deshmukh, his party stands to easily win six of the seven seats that have fallen vacant as there is little change in the composition of the local self government bodies from where these seats will be contested. He, however, admits that Nagpur is not likely to be a cakewalk. Nevertheless, he is confident that “we will win it, though with a bit of struggle”. The confidence comes from the quarrel between the Sena-BJP, who have been successfully divided in the district in the past by the Congress. Soon after the zilla parishad elections, the Congress supported the Sena to secure its own president while the BJP had a clear majority. The Congress hopes similar manipulation will help it sneak its candidate past the Sena-BJP’s nose during the Council elections as well.

In fact, the only seat that the Congress openly admits it is not eyeing at all is that of Sudhir Joshi, Maharashtra’s Minister for Education. The seat fell vacant in July. “He has a clear majority and we will not even bother about trying to upset him,” says Deshmukh.

There is hope that the Congress will be able to retain the second seat from the metropolis, which might be contested by Sena’s Kanhaiyalal Gidwani, currently the hot favourite considering his recent role in resolving the traders’ strike. The former Congressman’s support helped the Sena win the maximum candidatures during the last round of council elections in the state. Then, as now, the elections were held just weeks before the LS polls.

The writing on the wall is thus clear.