Congress-NCP eye alliance ahead of Thane civic polls​

The battle for Thane civic election is warming up as political parties look for allies to beat their opponents. On Friday evening​,​ in a joint meeting held at Thane, ​Congress and NCP decided to come together to fight their common enemy - ​the ​Shiv Sena-BJP combo.

​T​he TMC (Thane municipal corporation) elections ​are ​slated to ​take place ​in February end or March first week​.​

​After the meeting between NCP’s Thane president Anand Paranjape and Congress’ city president Manoj Shinde​,​ ​Paranjape said,​ “We are going ahead with the alliance to fight out Shiv Sena as well as BJP​.​”

​The ​C​ongress​, said that ​the ​BJP ​was not a factor to worry about at least in Thane. “Fighting BJP does not figure in our list as the party has negligible presence in Thane. Moreover​,​ we do not know if Sena and BJP will come together as they have been constantly bickering at ​the ​state level and it shows the lack of trust between the two parties,” ​Paranjape adds.

The parties hope that the recent demonetization ​move will help them win this election. “People have lost trust in the government because of the hasty demonetization by the government and its inability to regularise the monetary system in 50 days as promised,” he says.

If voted to power​,​ the parties ​have ​promise​d​ a separate dam for Thane city as their priority. “Stopping toll at toll nakas, separate dam for Thane and implementation of cluster development is on the top of our agenda,” sa​id​ Shinde.

Both the parties will again meet on January 12 to nominate their respective candidates.