NCP plans to take on BMC polls alone, says won't wait for alliance till last minute

Mumbai: NCP on Monday said it plans to contest all the 227 seats in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) during the civic body’s elections to be held early next year. “If an alliance with Congress does not materialise, we will contest all the 227 seats and preparations are on for the same,” NCP’s city unit president Sachin Ahir told reporters in Mumbai on Thursday. [caption id=“attachment_3037538” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sachin Ahir. Twitter/ @Sachin_Ahir_[/caption] He said the NCP will wait for the alliance to materialise till a specific time and not till the last minute. Ahir claimed the way ward delimitation has been done recently has hurt the ruling Shiv Sena the most. “There is room to suspect BJP’s hand, which is the dominant partner in the state government, in hurting its ally politically,” he said. Of the 227 seats, 149 are kept open for general category candidates (74 for women and 75 for men), 61 for OBCs (31 for women and 30 for men), 15 for SCs (8 for women and 7 for men) while 2 seats are reserved for ST nominees (1 each for female and male). The wards that were put under the open category in the last elections (in 2012) are this time reserved for various categories, as per the rotation rule for quotas. Currently, the country’s richest municipal body is jointly ruled by Shiv Sena and BJP, which are in power since last 20 years. The Sena won 76 seats and BJP 32 in the last polls. They were later supported by over a dozen Independent corporators. Congress secured 50 seats, MNS 28, NCP 14 and Samajwadi Party bagged 8, among others. Some corporators, however, termed the exercise of redrawing electoral boundaries as “unfair”, and said it will adversely affect their calculations and preparations for the forthcoming polls.