While Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) city president Sachin Ahir expressed confidence about its coalition with Congress in the upcoming civic polls, local Congress leaders seem to be not in mood to forge an alliance with NCP and are likely to go solo. In a meeting held on Saturday at the Mumbai Congress office in Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan, most of the party leaders were opposed to joining hands with NCP.
At the meeting, strategies were discussed regarding the issues to be raised in the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls against the ruling Shiv Sena. Party in-charge Mohan Prakash and city president Sanjay Nirupam were at the meeting which was also attended by Gurudas Kamat, Eknath Gaikwad, Professor Janardan Chandurkar, Gurcharan Singh Sapra among others.
Mr Nirupam said, “Shiv Sena has been in power for the past 25 years, but has failed to provide basic amenities to Mumbaikars — there are roads with potholes, dumping grounds, issues of health and hygiene, and so on. We will raise these issues in the civic poll,” he said.
According to a party insider, Mr Nirupam met party president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi last week and both the leaders have instructed the state Congress to contest the civic polls with unity and warned that differences and groupism be kept aside.
According to sources, in Saturday’s meeting all groups were present and discussed which ward would be safer for the party. “The MIM’s challenge and its existence in certain wards was also discussed in a meeting,” he said.
According to fillers coming from Shiv Sena and BJP, both parties would be contesting the polls separately. In this situation, the Congress is likely to be relegated to third position. At present Congress has 52 corporators and the party is working to contest maximum seats all alone.
