Fisticuffs! For votes8217; sake Kakade

PUNE, March 5: Machiavellian politics touched new heights at today's elections to one of Pune Municipal Corporation's prestigious posts. ...

PUNE, March 5: Machiavellian politics touched new heights at today8217;s elections to one of Pune Municipal Corporation8217;s prestigious posts. The standing committee chairman8217;s post saw all the political parties indulging in hectic bargaining that would even have given way to unusual alliances like the Congress tying up with the BJP-SS alliance !

The day-long petty politicking saw BJP-SS8217;s boycott of the voting process and then backing their alliance partner MVA after ten minutes, the fisticuffs that would have been resorted to by corporators Nitin Jagtap and Anees Sundke and sheer lung power of the supporters who smeared their victorious candidate with gulal.

They coupled with slogan shouting Suresh Kalmadi Zindabad8217; and No power without BJP8217;.

Cell phones and pagers wouldn8217;t stop ringing as respective party leaders tried to get in touch with their top brass to forge some kind of alliance with any party. Trying to appear all-important on the D-Day were the Congress corporators who were in high demand when the strained relations between the alliance partners BJP-SS and PVA nearly reached a breakpoint.

Chaos ensued when Municipal Secretary Ramdas Jagtap asked the committee members to elect a temporary chairman to conduct the remaining election process. PVA corporators saw red even as Suman Mathwad who is officially with the party, raised her hand to vote in favour of a Congress member Dilip Tupe to act as the temporary chairman.

PVA corporator Anees Sundke and Congress corporator Nitin Jagtap nearly came to blows over the issue and all hell broke loose as Mathwad8217;s vote would have given the Congress an edge over the PVA. So much so that Republican Party of India RPI corporator Chandrakanta Sonkamble shocked her leaders when she demanded that the elections be postponed.

The drama reached an anti-climax when the BJP-SS staged an entry into the house after barely boycotting the voting process and deciding to back Dhimdhime after negotiations with PVA leader Suresh Kalmadi went in their BJP-SS favour and thereby dashing the hopes of Congress which had hoped to bag some posts. Kalmadi who congratulated Dhimdhime was cheered by the PVA supporters but refused to admit to tense moments8217; on the alliance8217;s survival.