Mumbai: Over the past few days, one sentence has become common in political corridors across Maharashtra’s cities and political parties: “Corporators are unreachable.”
With several corporations throwing up fractured mandates and an intense tug-of-war for power, especially among Mahayuti allies, hectic parleys are on to stake claim to power in urban local bodies. And for this, parties are willing to explore various permutations and combinations of alliances.
In Kalyan Dombivali, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has tied up with the rival Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). In Ulhasnagar, Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) is backing the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, while the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) has hinted at a possible tie-up even with the BJP to “avoid instability” in local governments.
“We have had no proposals, and if we get them we toss them in the bin. But, with BJP at some places…meaning, we will never go with Shinde but if there are alternatives available there, then the party chief will take a decision. But nobody will take a decision unilaterally,” Sanjay Raut, a Rajya Sabha MP from the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, told reporters on Thursday.
‘Unreachable’ corporators
Parties have been keeping their elected corporators corralled till the time they get their groups registered with the divisional commissioner.
In some cases, they are being kept away from the public glare and the spotlight of other political parties, even after the registration of the group.
In Chandrapur, when Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar was asked about the whereabouts of the party’s corporators, the MLA said in a lighter vein, “I will send you a Google location.”
In Mumbai, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena had a tense moment when one of its 65 elected corporators, Sarita Mhaske, was unreachable when the party registered its group of corporators with the Konkan divisional commissioner on Wednesday.
Mhaske, however, surfaced on Thursday, saying she was out of town visiting temples, and her phone was switched off.
“When I got back, I spoke to party leaders and for my safety, the party instructed me to keep my phone switched off till I come and meet them,” said Mhaske, who showed up at Matoshree, the Thackeray residence in Bandra, on Thursday.
The Mumbai civic body also delivered a fractured mandate, with the BJP being the single largest party with 89 seats. It was followed by the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena with 65 seats, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena with 29, and the Congress with 24, among others.
The BJP and Shinde-led Shiv Sena contested the election in alliance, and the latter plans to press hard for power sharing in the civic body, including getting the mayor’s post for half the term.
A day after the result last week, the Shinde-led Shiv Sena moved its 29 elected corporators to Mumbai’s Taj Lands End hotel. Officially, the party maintained they were brought together for a workshop on civic duties.
A corporator-elect, who did not wish to be named, told ThePrint, “We were there till Tuesday morning. The idea was to directly go to the divisional commissioner to register our group, but there were talks between our party and the BJP of holding off, and possibly going together to register our groups. In the meantime, our party got all our paperwork, affidavits and signatures ready.”
In the Kalyan Dombivali municipal corporation, at least two elected corporators of the Shiv Sena (UBT) are said to be unreachable, and the party has issued notices to them.
The BJP and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena contested the Kalyan Dombivali election as an alliance and ended up neck-and-neck with 50 and 53 seats respectively in the 122-member body.
Shrikant Shinde, MP from Kalyan and son of Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, secured the backing of five MNS corporators to improve his bargaining position vis-a-vis the BJP.
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A scramble for power
Following the developments in Kalyan Dombivali, Maharashtra BJP president Ravindra Chavan, an MLA from the Dombivli assembly constituency, said in a statement that the Mahayuti will secure the mayor’s post in Thane, Kalyan Dombivli and Ulhasnagar municipal corporations.
He said he had held discussions about this with Deputy Chief Minister Shinde last week and the creases would be ironed out once Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was back from Davos.
Meanwhile, in the Ulhasnagar civic body, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has secured support from two corporators from the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, one independent and one from its local ally, the SAI party, to comfortably cross the halfway mark.
The BJP emerged as the single-largest party in this corporation with 37 seats, followed closely by the Shinde-led Shiv Sena with 36.
In Chandrapur, the Congress finished as the single-largest party in the 66-member corporation, but is short of a majority. The party won 27 seats against the BJP’s 23. The Congress party’s local ally, the Bharatiya Shetkari Kamgar Paksh, won three seats, taking the Congress tally to 30.
The Shiv Sena (UBT) has won six seats, which will be decisive for the Congress to cross the halfway mark. The AIMIM, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena have won one seat each, while the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi has secured two. Two other independents, both Congress rebels, have also won. The Shiv Sena (UBT) and VBA have come together as one group here.
The Congress victory has been marred by differences between its two leaders in the district—MLA Vijay Wadettiwar and MP Pratibha Dhanorkar.
“People may say whatever they want, but Chandrapur will have a Congress mayor. There may be differences within the party. In the BJP, too, there is a rift; nobody talks about it. I have given all the rights to take any decision about who to make the mayor and deputy mayor to the state president,” Wadettiwar told reporters on Thursday.
“Whoever backs us, we will satisfy them and make them part of the government. We are sure that the Shiv Sena (UBT) will come with us 100 percent. We have had discussions,” he added.
Meanwhile, there have also been talks of the BJP courting the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena in Chandrapur.
On Wednesday, while justifying the MNS’ backing to the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, MNS leader Sandeep Deshpande said, “In Chandrapur, they (the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena) are in talks with the BJP. They are taking a decision as per their local conditions. We also decided, as per our local conditions.”
Sandip Girhe, district president of the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena in Chandrapur, told reporters Monday that the party would like to ally with the Congress.
“But the Congress should fulfill our demand. If the party doesn’t, then all roads are open for us. We will go with the party that will give us a Shiv Sena mayor,” he said.
“Whatever decision is taken, it will be only after discussions and on the orders of Uddhavsaheb Thackeray,” he added.
Shiv Sena UBT spokesperson Harshal Pradhan told ThePrint, “We won’t be going with the BJP at any cost. We will be with Congress.”
In Bhiwandi too, the Congress has emerged as the single-largest party in the 90-member municipal corporation, winning 30 seats. The halfway mark is 46.
The Congress registered its group and has since reportedly corralled its corporators. The Sharad Pawar-led NCP has 12 corporators, while the Samajwadi Party has six. The Congress can stake a claim on the corporation with the support of traditional allies Samajwadi Party and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP.
In Malegaon, a traditional bastion of the Congress, a new party, ISLAM (Indian Secular Largest Assembly of Maharashtra), has emerged as the single-largest with 35 of the 84 seats.
The Samajwadi Party, which contested the poll with the ISLAM party won five seats, falling short of the halfway mark by just three seats.
The local Congress unit, which has won three seats, has shown its willingness to support the ISLAM-Samajwadi Party alliance.
Here, AIMIM leader Imtiaz Jaleel told reporters on Tuesday, the Shinde-led Shiv Sena had approached his party to explore an understanding in Malegaon, but the AIMIM had decided not to go with either the BJP or the Shinde-led Shiv Sena. The AIMIM is in talks to support the ISLAM party-led alliance.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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