RPI demands more seats in PMC polls; today’s Mumbai meeting crucial.
The historic alliance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena (SS) and Republican Party of India (RPI) is going through rough weather over seat-sharing for the scheduled Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) polls.
With all eyes set on the big meeting between the alliance partners, scheduled to take place in Mumbai on Saturday, the parties’ leaders in Pune are keeping their fingers crossed at the moment.
Even as consensus was reached for 46 panels during the first phase of seat-sharing talks, each alliance party has demanded more seats for the remaining 30 panels. BJP and SS leaders pointed out that division of 20 panels would be easy, while the juggling skills of leaders would be tested for the other 10.
The RPI’s demand for 33 seats has affected the alliance’s unity.
Senior BJP leaders told DNA that the saffron alliance would concede 15-17 seats, which they say would do justice to the presence of the new entrant party.
The inclusion of RPI has put the BJP-SS in a quandary as they require the strong Dalit vote bank, which the former commands. However, when it comes to sharing of seats, the saffron alliance points out to the dismal performance of the RPI in the past civic polls, where it had garnered only 1.6% of the total votes polled.
What has irked BJP leaders is the apparent bid of the RPI to ride piggyback on the former party’s success. “The RPI has claimed some seats in Sadashiv Peth, which is a BJP bastion,” a senior party functionary said.
BJP leaders claim that the apparent indecisiveness of the Sena leaders has dragged the vexatious issue of seat sharing. A senior BJP leader told DNA that the “adamancy” of Sena MLAs Mahadev Babar and Chandrakant Mokate has frayed equations between the long-time saffron alliance.
The crucial Saturday meeting in Mumbai will be important for the new-found alliance.
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