MUMBAI: Unholy micro level political alignments became a major talking point after Maharashtra’s recent local body polls, embarrassing the BJP and the Congress leaderships.
At the Akot Nagar Parishad, the BJP joined hands with Owaisi’s AIMIM to cut the Congress and Prakash Ambedkar’s party out of the power matrix. In Ambernath, the BJP did a deal with the Congress to keep its NDA partner Shiv Sena led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde out of power.
In Ambarnath, Shinde’s Sena was the single largest party with 23 councilors, BJP followed with 14, Congress had 12 and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s NCP 4. Yet, BJP’s Tejshashree Karanjule got elected as president because of the opportunistic alliance called Ambarnath Vikas Aghadi. The local BJP unit defended it, saying it was against the corrupt Sena, which was running Ambarnath for 20 years.
Akot, too, threw up a hung house with the BJP on 11, Congress 6, AIMIM 5 among others. The BJP formed the Akot Vikas Manch with the support of 23 councilors, including AIMIM.
After public outcry, state BJP president Ravindra Chavan issued the show cause notice to its Akot unit. As for the Congress, it expelled its 12 corporators in Ambarnath and dissolved the local unit.