PAWAR GEARS UP FOR BMC POLLS, HOLDS PARTY MEET

Mumbai: A day after ally Shiv Sena pledged support to National Democratic Alliance (NDA) presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday sounded the bugle for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls. He told party workers to gear up for polls.

Addressing a two-day conclave of state and district working committees of the party at YB Chavan Centre, Pawar tasked working presidents of the Mumbai Pradesh Nationalist Congress Party Rakhee Jadhav and Narendra Rane to draw up the campaign plan and logistics. “Senior leaders of the party will give their time to the poll campaign, but I will also personally visit wards on directions of the Mumbai district chiefs,” he said. He told party workers not to concern themselves with which party will ally with them, and reach out to the party supporters in each of the 239 wards.

Pawar had stitched the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance with the Congress and the Shiv Sena to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) out of power in Maharashtra. However, the recent rebellion by 40 Shiv Sena workers led by now CM Eknath Shinde led to the collapse of the MVA government.

Before the rebellion, Pawar had brought together the entire spectrum of opposition leaders at his Delhi residence to prop up Yashwant Sinha as the opposition candidate. However, ally Shiv Sena’s move to back NDA presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu against Sinha has put a question mark on whether the MVA alliance of Sena-NCP-Congress will continue as strongly now that they are out of power. Sources say that Pawar is keen that the coalition survives for local body polls.

With the BJP back in power and Eknath Shinde as an ally, the BJP will make its most aggressive bid to wrest control in the BMC from the Shiv Sena.