The face off between Congress candidate and NCP rebel in the state Legislative Council elections and the eventual victory of Bhai Jagtap of the Congress has raised questions whether new political equations are emerging in the state with the BJP rallying behind NCP rebel Prasad Lad. The action of the 31 BJP corporators, some of whom voted for the NCP rebel and some for the Congress’ candidate, also showed that the decision of Mumbai BJP president Ashish Shelar, would not be final in the 2017 BMC elections. Mr Shelar had declared that his party would remain neutral in the MLC election. BJP inner circles revealed that BJP corporators voted in favour of the NCP rebel after instructions from chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
In the elections, Congress retained the Mumbai (Ashok alias Bhai Jagtap), Kolhapur (Satej Patil) and Dhule-Nandurbar (Amrish Patel) seats whereas Sena retained Mumbai (Ramdas Kadam) and Akola (Gopikishan Bajoria). NCP lost Solapur where BJP’s Prashant Paricharak defeated outgoing NCP’s Deepak Salunkhe. NCP won the Ahmednagar seat (Arunkaka Jagtap). BJP’s Girish Vyas has already been elected unopposed from Nagpur constituency as Congress withdrew its candidate at the last moment.
The fight in Mumbai was notable as NCP’s rebel Mr Lad was in the fray against Congress’ official candidate and outgoing MLC Mr Jagtap. Contrary to expectations, Mr Jagtap managed to split 13 more votes than Congress’ strength of 51 corporators in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. He polled 64 votes while former Mumbai NCP general secretary Mr Lad managed to poll 55 votes. NCP has just 14 corporators in the BMC.
BJP insiders said that the party’s Mumbai president Ashish Shelar had announced that his corporators will not vote for any other candidate as the Shiv Sena was not dependent upon BJP’s votes. However, the CM’s instruction forced party corporators to vote for NCP rebel Mr Lad, insiders said. “It meant that Mr Shelar’s word will not be final in the BMC election scheduled in 2017. It was an indirect checkmate to Mr Shelar,” a source claimed.
A close aid of Congress leader Gurudas Kamat, on condition of anonymity said that Mr Kamat called up independent corporators and secured their support for Mr Jagtap. On the other hand, Mr Lad thanked chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for getting his support.
Senior Congress leaders agreed that the NCP-BJP equation would widen the gap between Congress-NCP as well.
