Dinesh Kamath's news 'Struggle for Mayor’s post still going on' that was published in Newsband

Struggle for Mayor’s post still going on

By Dinesh Kamath

NAVI MUMBAI: Mayoral election will take place on May 9. Nationalist Congress Party appears to be favouring independent candidate Sudhakar Sonawane who appears to be the favourite to win the Mayor’s post. The strange thing is that his own wife Ranjana too might bag the Mayor’s post as is being speculated by some political pundits.

Shiv Sena was willing to support Sonawane for Mayor’s post. But Sonawane preferred to be backed by Nationalist Congress Party obviously because NCP has won much more seats than Shiv Sena in Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation. It is not surprising that Sonawane preferred to be backed by Ganesh Naik’s men rather than by Sena.

But Sonawane might receive a tough fight from NCP's Nivruti Jagtap who is also the favourite of Naik’s camp. In case Jagtap wins the Mayor’s post, Sonawane might regret having not accepted Sena’s support.

In the meantime, NCP are in search of five independents to form a majority in NMMC. The bargaining is going on since the Independents seem to be demanding a price, in the form of post or cash, for supporting NCP. If the price they demand is reasonable then it will not be a problem for NCP to reach the magical figure of 56 and thus form the majority in NMMC.

The Congress has 10 corporators in the civic body. Congress had remained separated from NCP while fighting the NMMC election. Although Congress and NCP are having good relations at National level, the story at the local level is just the opposite. In Navi Mumbai, the local NCP and Congress leaders just cannot get along well with each other.

The local Sena leaders are just not revealing their mind. When asked by the Reporter as to what their strategy will be, the answer was ‘Wait and see’.

The interesting thing is Sena-BJP alliance has 44 seats in NMMC. If the Congress along with a few independents decide to support this alliance then this new alliance will be in a position to become the majority side in NMMC. But NCP being the party with most seats will get the first chance to form the ruling government in NMMC. If only all the independents and the Congress Party refuse to ally with NCP and are bought by BJP-Sena alliance by being promised the posts of mayor and deputy mayor, then there could be an unexpected turn in the event. Thus it is still anybody’s game.