INDIA bloc faces big setback – Congress mulls solo run in BMC Elections

INDIA bloc faces big setback – Congress mulls solo run in BMC Elections

In the wake of Congress mulling solo run in the Mumbai BMC Polls, Concerns over being sidelined in alliance with MVA partners
Minority votes shifting to Uddhav Sena, claims Congress leaders.

Uddhav Sena too has expressed its desire to contest BMC polls alone
In a meeting held on Monday in Delhi, a section of Maharashtra Congress leaders pushed for the party to contest the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections solo.
The leaders felt that the Congress risks being sidelined in the city if it contests elections to the cash-rich civic body along with its Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies – the Shiv Sena (Uddhav faction) and the NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) – leaving the Congress High Command in a quandary.

Many within the party pointed out that while minority votes were shifting to the Shiv Sena (Uddhav faction), Hindutva-leaning voters were not rallying behind the Congress either.
However, the party High Command may not have to make the difficult call after all, as the Uddhav Sena had already expressed its intention of fighting the civic body polls alone.

The elections are scheduled to be held either this year or early next year.
The meeting on Monday saw the attendance by top Congress leaders from Maharashtra, including its state in-charge Ramesh Chennithala, Rajya Sabha member and general secretary Mukul Wasnik, ex-state unit chief Nana Patole and others.
Exterior to 227 seats, the Congress managed to win only 31 seats in the 2017 BMC polls, while it won 56 in 2012 and 75 in 2007.

Following MVA Alliance’s poor show in last year’s assembly elections, the fate of the INDIA bloc in Maharashtra hangs by a thread afore the civic body polls.
Exterior to 288 assembly seats, the MVA could bag only 46 seats, with Congress winning only 16.

News Edit KV Raman