On Monday, NCP president Sharad Pawar chaired a meeting of the coalition to strategise for the polls and Tuesday’s meeting. According to information, regularisation of structures in extended goathans will likely be the coalition’s major poll plank as will be infrastructural upgrade. (File photo)
After coming together to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party government to come to power in the state, the coalition of the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress has now set its eyes on the Navi Mumbai civic polls. The Navi Mumbai municipal polls, scheduled for April this year, will be the first major urban body polls that the Maha Vikas Aghadi is planning to contest together after coming to power in the state.
In the run up to the polls, senior ministers and leaders from three parties will hold a joint public rally in Navi Mumbai on Tuesday. According to information, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, Jayant Patil, Dilip Walse-Patil (all NCP), Ashok Chavan, Vishwajeet Kadam (both Congress), and Shiv Sena minister Eknath Shinde, among others, will be attending the public meeting.
On Monday, NCP president Sharad Pawar chaired a meeting of the coalition to strategise for the polls and Tuesday’s meeting. According to information, regularisation of structures in extended goathans will likely be the coalition’s major poll plank as will be infrastructural upgrade.
In April 2015, the NCP had won 52 out of 111 seats and come to power with Congress’s support, which had 10 seats. But just ahead of the state assembly polls in 2019, former NCP minister and local heavyweight, Ganesh Naik, switched over to the BJP, taking 48 of the 52 NCP corporators with him. The BJP, which had won just six seats in the 2015 poll, grabbed power in the municipality.
In the past, Navi Mumbai civic polls have seen a fierce battle between the NCP and the Shiv Sena. In 2015, the Shiv Sena had come second with 37 seats. But Naik’s switch over has tilted the scales in the favour of the BJP, forcing the two parties to come together. Incidentally, Naik originally belonged to the Shiv Sena before switching over to the NCP.
Pawar woos OBCs
In another move to woo voters from the backward classes, NCP president Sharad Pawar, on Monday, directed party leader and Maharashtra’s Social Justice minister Dhananjay Munde to formulate a career and skill training programme targeting youth from the scheduled castes. According to information, Pawar has directed Munde to organise such training workshops across districts, to make sure at least one lakh youth are imparted training. Pawar has been eyeing the OBC votebank ever since his party rode back to power in the state.