Published On : Mon, Jan 16th, 2017

NMC Polls : NCP joins hands with Muslim League to counter Congress

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Anil DeshmukhNagpur: Dissatisfaction grew in local NCP over the seat sharing with Congress, for the upcoming Nagpur Municipal Corporation polls, following which NCP has tied up with Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) for the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) elections.

Congress had offered only 12 seats to NCP in its preliminary offer and clearly NCP wants to increase its bargaining power.

However, NCP is finding it difficult to strike an alliance with Congress because of the intense factionalism in the latter. City NCP president Anil Deshmukh said that he was desirous of having an alliance with Congress and was ready to play the role of junior partner. “I had called up their senior most leader Vilas Muttemwar for giving this offer. However, soon I got telephone calls from some Congress leaders, who objected to my parlays with Muttemwar. They told me that the ex-MP had not been authorized by Congress to hold such talks. I don’t know whom to talk to,” he added.

Shamim Sadiq, city president of IUML, told the media that his party had tied up with NCP to keep communal forces at bay. He however, refused to spell out what he meant by communal forces. IUML’s two corporators were part of BJP-led Nagpur Vikas Aghadi.

In 2012 both NCP and IUML had contested independently. While NCP had contested on 29 seats, IUML had thrown the hat in the ring from 14 seats.

Meanwhile, BJP’s former city general secretary Chandrakant Barapatre has joined NCP. He is from the Halba community. Deshmukh said that he had been given the post of general secretary in the party’s Vidarbha unit. NCP MLC Prakash Gajbhiye, ex-corporator Vedprakash Arya and others were present in the press conference.