Amid bitter rivalry, infighting, BMC goes to elections today

These are challenging times for the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation. The civic body goes to polls on Tuesday, amid acute power shortage and a bitter rivalry between two parties that ruled the corporation together for two decades.

Tuesday’s polls to the largest civic body in Asia would have a serious impact on the political future of Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra’s BJP Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, which explains the mud slinging and war of words between the allies-turned-rivals in the run-up to the polls.

The Sena is not only a partner in the BJP-led state government, but is also a constituent of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Mumbai aside, nine other big corporations — Thane, Ulhasnagar, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Solapur, Nashik, Akola, Amravati and Nagpur — also go to polls on Tuesday,  along with 11 zilla parishads and 118 panchayat samitis.

BMC is divided into 24 administrative wards and 227 seats.  The Sena currently holds 75 seats and has a solid hold over the civic body with its partner BJP, which has 31 seats. The snapping of the ties between the partners has created fault lines in the state government, besides raising doubts over their dominance in the local body for the past 20 years.

The Congress, the second largest party with 52 seats, has been witnessing bitter infighting among its top leaders like AICC general secretary Gurudas Kamat, former chief minister Narayan Rane and former ministers Kripashankar Singh and Naseem Khan, who are restricting their campaign to a few pockets owing to their resentment for Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam.

The polls will also decide the fate of NCP, which has seven seats in the civic body, MNS 27, SP nine and others (32).