NEW DELHI: Congress on Friday suffered a setback on Friday, with the Shiv Sena-BJP combine winning the prestigious municipal polls in Mumbai and adjoining Thane in a contest which consolidated the position of Sena rebel Raj Thackeray as an independent force in Maharashtra.
Raj Thackeray's MNS grabbed 28 seats in Mumbai -- impeding Sena's effort to score a fourth straight outright win -- notched up 29 seats in Pune and was leading the pack in Nashik, with the established contenders lagging behind. BJP was ahead in party chief Nitin Gadkari's hometown of Nagpur, while the Congress-NCP combine led the race in Solapur, Amravati and Pimpri Chinchwad.
The saffron combo held on to the Mumbai municipal body with Sena winning 75 seats and BJP 32 as against Congress and NCP winning 50 and 14 respectively. Although the tally of the winning combination, which included the Athawale faction of RPI, fell short of the magic figure in the 227-strong body, it was expected to make up the deficit with the support of Independents and others.
While MNS's performance should worry Sena and can lead to calls for unity among the estranged Thackeray cousins -- Raj and Uddhav -- the results spell a bigger concern for Congress. It was odds-on favourite in the elections to BMC, the country's richest municipal body with a budget bigger than those of states like Goa and Uttarakhand. Unlike last time, it contested the polls in league with NCP. More importantly, after three lacklustre stints and with the insurgent MNS having taken away a chunk of its core, it looked an election for Sena-BJP to lose.
Party strategists may be forced to ponder whether the Mumbai defeat is indicative of the mood of urban India. Maharashtra has a large urban landscape, and the failure in urban civic bodies could impact future elections, especially if the palpable sentiment against the party whipped up by civil society was in play in Mumbai.
Maharashtra apart, the disappointment could not have come at a worse time since Uttar Pradesh is in the middle of crucial assembly elections. Sources felt the setback could impact the floating voters in coming legs of voting, especially as the polls shift to western pockets with urban voters. The fear is compounded by increased voting in towns of UP.
The tidings were not good for Congress even from rural areas of Maharashtra, with its not-so-dependable ally NCP besting it in zila parishad polls. NCP bagged 525 of the total 1639 seats while Congress secured 457. BJP got 198 seats.
In the panchayat samiti polls, NCP got 1,026 of the total 3,252 seats. Congress bagged 866, BJP 404 and Shiv Sena 497 seats.
Congress snatching defeat from the jaws of a victory in Mumbai and Thane, coupled with the fact that it could not make the most of Raj playing the spoiler for the saffron combine is sure to cause disquiet. The results to the Mumbai body may not hold a trend. It has stayed with the saffron combo even as Congress-NCP successively marginalized the rivals in Lok Sabha and assembly elections in the last decade. Some AICC managers said local elections in Maharashtra have always shown a preference for local outfits.
But senior party sources acknowledged that the results were troubling, as they vowed to do an inquest into the reasons. Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, who had framed the elections as the semi-final to the Lok Sabha and state polls, expressed surprise and conceded defeat. "The result is surprising... unexpected. We tried to consolidate secular votes but could not meet with desired outcome," he said.
The results are unlikely to impact the position of Chavan who raised the stakes in the battle with strong words about Shiv Sena's "looming irrelevance". It would, however, correct his position which was boosted by victories in zilla panchayat polls earlier.
Thane-Mumbai accounts for a big chunk of assembly seats while Congress swept Mumbai in Lok Sabha because of Raj Thackeray's MNS cutting into Shiv Sena votes. This time, Shiv Sena managed to win in Mumbai corporation despite MNS performing well, raising fears that the fledgling outfit had begun to cut into the Congress base too.
The failings will form the focus of the Congress review which would be announced in coming days, AICC sources said.
The biggest concern, however, remains the vanishing Congress leaders in the crucial state. Scams felled bigwigs like Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashok Chavan while there is virtual stagnation and sidelining of Sushil Kumar Shinde and the chief minister seems on an extended learning curve. All this has starved the party of good mobilizers. A corrective is seen as urgent, lest the party fell behind ally NCP.
Congress sources said it was unfortunate that Mumbai hijacked the civic election results since the party had earned majority in two corporations and would rule the third too, besides increasing its overall tally statewide.
[source:-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/BJP-Shiv-Sena-wins-Mumbai-municipal-polls/articleshow/11932038.cms]
