Last Update: January 25, 2023, 4:25 pm IST
Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis Govt. (Image: PTI/File)
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has 227 seats in the house. It is currently under an administrator as the five-year term of its elected representatives expired early last year and fresh elections are due.
The party’s city president Ashish Shelar on Wednesday reiterated its senior leader and Union minister Amit Shah’s ‘Mission 150 seats’, saying Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led BJP and Shiv Sena factions will win more than 150 seats in the upcoming BMC polls.
Speaking at a program organized by regional newspaper Loksatta, Shelar said that the BJP will also have a mayor in Mumbai.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has 227 seats in the house. It is currently under an administrator as the five-year term of its elected representatives ended early last year and fresh elections are due.
He said, ‘BJP will win more than 150 seats with our alliance partner CM Eknath Shinde. Shelar said, the mayor of the new body will be from the BJP.
The Shiv Sena has controlled the BMC, Asia’s richest civic body, with an annual budget of around Rs 45,000 crore since 1997. But the last election in 2017 was a close contest as it won 84 seats, just two more than the BJP.
After returning to power in Maharashtra in alliance with Shinde, whose rebellion split the Shiv Sena and led to the collapse of the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government last year, the BJP is keen to wrest control of the BMC from the Shiv Sena.
Last week the saffron party got the Prime Minister Narendra Modi To lay foundation stones and inaugurate projects worth Rs 38,000 crore aimed at developing infrastructure, easing urban travel and strengthening healthcare in the country’s financial capital.
Shelar said, “There is a difference between the Shiv Sena led by late Balasaheb Thackeray and the Shiv Sena currently led by Uddhav Thackeray. Balasaheb was a man with a big heart, always ready for talks and the foundation of his alliance (with BJP) was Hindutva.
He said that many of Uddhav Thackeray’s comments in the past were critical of the BJP. “Sharing power with the BJP in the state government between 2014 and 2019, Uddhav once said that his party had rotted during its alliance with the BJP for over 25 years. Before the 2014 assembly elections, he broke the alliance with us for just one seat.
“They again joined hands with us before the 2019 assembly polls but broke it after the results were out. There is an inconsistency in his behaviour,” said the former minister of state.
When asked about PM Modi’s role in the BMC polls, Shelar said, “He will naturally remain the face of our campaign like Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.” Reminding his party’s rank and file of the Shiv Sena’s “betrayal” in 2014, Union Home Minister Amit Shah last year asked BJP workers to field them for the BMC polls, for which he called for a ‘Mission 150 seats’. The target was fixed.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)