Congress city chief Kripashankar Singh claimed that there is no infighting or factionalism in the party, and whatever has been witnessed in the last few days were “disputes within the party”.
He asserted that nearly 50% representation has been given to the Marathi candidates this BMC election. Singh, who was interacting with the media on Saturday during Meet The Press, organised by Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh, said that the allegations of selling of tickets by the party leadership were baseless.
Singh said that though some leaders from the Congress had raised objections over the process of the allotment of tickets and criticised the leadership, there is no split in the party. “MPs Guruda Kamat and Priya Dutt raised objections over some issues, but it was in the right spirit and for the good of the party,” he said.
The city Congress general secretary and former councillor had alleged a couple of days ago that the BMC election tickets were sold. Both of them have been suspended.
The Congress has fielded 81 Maharashtrians, 24 Gujaratis and 22 north Indian candidates in the BMC elections. “We are of the opinion that Marathis should get the rightful representation in civic elections,” he said. Singh refused to agree with the observation that he was being targeted by Marathi leaders like Raj Thackeray, Uddhav Thackeray and Ajit Sawant just because he was a north Indian leader. He alleged that the ruling Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party had allotted limited funds to councillors from opposition parties, which had hampered development works. “It is sure that the next mayor of the city will be from the Congress and we would seek the support of all parties towards development-related work,” he said.
Comments