Thursday, April 9, 2015

Dinesh Kamath's news 'Efforts made to ensure fair election; City will witness tough fight this time' that was published in Newsband

Efforts made to ensure fair election
City will witness tough fight this time
By Dinesh Kamath
Picture of election symbols of BJP, SS and NCP
NAVI MUMBAI: Just as there are neutral umpires in cricket test matches to ensure fair play, there will be staff of civic bodies other than Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation which will conduct the fifth NMMC election. No NMMC officials will play a role in elections to ensure that there is no cheating at the time of elections.
The staff members of municipal corporations of Thane, Dombivli, Ulhasnagar and Mira Bhayandar have been called to assist members of City and Industrial Development Corporation and Konkan Bhavan to conduct the elections.
The making of arrangements of voting booths and vehicles for election duty is in progress. Regional Transport Office is all set to provide whatever help that is required during the election period. The list of men and machineries required during the elections has been prepared and a master plan for their appropriate placement is in the making.
Navi Mumbai has more than 8 lacs voters and there are 111 seats. Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiv Sena combined will take on Nationalist Congress Party and the two are all set to go to any extent to gain domination in NMMC by trying to send their maximum corporators over there.  NCP has been reigning over the city for 15 years and BJP and Sena are totally determined to replace NCP this time. With Manda Mhatre master-planning the election strategies for BJP and Vijay Nahata for Shiv Sena, NCP is bound to face a very tough fight from alliance of BJP and Sena. The statistics relating to assembly elections that took place in Navi Mumbai a few months back indicates that it can be anybody’s game this time.
BJP could not have gone solo anyway and Sena too could not have achieved any success without allying with BJP considering the fact that they are without the active participation of their leader Vijay Chougule. Hence it was absolutely necessary that BJP and Sena form an alliance to take on NCP.
Another advantage for BJP and Sena will be the absence of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in the election fray. In the past MNS would take away the part of votes which should either have gone to BJP or Sena. This time such a thing will not happen since MNS has chosen not to contest NMMC election in Navi Mumbai. Congress is not a problem for BJP-SS and NCP.

In all, 56 seats need to be won by a party which wants to dominate in NMMC.  It is left to be seen now as to which party will achieve this magic number. 

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