Bid for Zilla Parishad power unites parties

Mumbai: Party ideology went for a toss in Maharashtra politics when after the state witnessed a flurry of cross-party alliances in the Zilla Parishad chairman elections on Tuesday. All parties including ruling and opposition parties, joined hands in different ZP bodies. Bitter rivals at the national level, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, came together in Yavatmal district to keep the Shiv Sena at bay while in Jalna, Sena joined hands with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress to keep BJP out of power. At the end of this political ‘khichadi’, BJP emerged numero uno, pocketing 10 ZP chairman posts out of 25. The Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena got five ZP chairman posts each.

For the past few days state level leaders of Sena, Congress and NCP were planning to come together against BJP. However, local politics triumphed over state politics and their leaders defied party lines in a bid to come to power.

In the high profile Beed district, BJP managed to win the ZP chairmanship where it had come a distant second. NCP leader Suresh Dhas helped BJP leader and Cabinet minister Pankaja Munde against her cousin and NCP leader Dhananjay Munde in Beed. BJP’s allies— Vinayak Mete’s Shiv Sangram and Suresh Dhas’s NCP rebels — won the chairman and deputy chairman posts.

Yavatmal district in Vidarbha saw a surprising alliance between Congress and BJP. Congress leader Manikrao Thakre and BJP minister of state Madan Yeravar joined hands to prevent Sena minister of state Sanjay Rathod from capturing power in the ZP.

But Sena is not the only one who got cornered — BJP too tasted the same medicine in Jalna where Sena minister of state Arjun Khotkar and NCP leader and former minister Rajesh Tope came together to keep BJP state president Raosaheb Danve away from power. The NCP, in a bid to keep itself relevant in district politics, joined the ‘winning side’. At the end of this ‘jugad politics’, BJP notched up its highest ever tally of ZP chairman posts in its history by winning 10 districts out of 25. It also managed to win six deputy chairman posts of ZPs. The NCP remained second, winning five chairman and six deputy chairman posts, Congress won five chairman and four deputy chairman posts, while Shiv Sena won five chairman and four deputy chairman posts.