Congress high command is miffed at inexplicable withdrawal of party candidates for Nagpur mayoral re-elections, where BJP’s Iwnate was elected unopposed.
NAGPUR: The state Congress high command is miffed at the inexplicable withdrawal of the party candidates for last Sunday’s Nagpur mayoral re-elections, in which BJP’s Maya Iwnate was elected unopposed for the first time in the history of NMC.
Maharashtra State Congress Committee (MPCC) President Prabha Rau has issued showcause notices to the party candidates Sindhu Uikey and Pushpa Lanjewar, who withdrew their nominations at the last moment, while the local leaders had claimed that they were in dark about the decision. Rau has asked Uikey and Lanjewar to explain why and at whose instance had they withdrawn their nomination.
But the city President, Jaiprakash Gupta, went into a defensive mode during an emergency meeting on Monday evening. It is learnt that the MPCC is sending former MP Bhaskar Patil-Khatgaonkar to probe the fiasco later this week. Rau is also learnt to have sought an explanation from the city leaders.
In a snub to the local leadership, Rau has reportedly told the city unit of the party that she “isn’t certainly happy over the sudden and inexplicable withdrawal of the candidates from the mayoral polls and smacks of internal bickering.”
Apparently, Rau had sent letters to the leaders of two Congress camps in the city - MP and Central Minister Vilas Muttermwar and Maharashtra Minister Satish Chaturvedi (a legislator from east Nagpur constituency) - to hold meetings with the party corporators before the mayoral elections and decide on the strategy.
Clearly on a defensive, the city unit chief, Jaiprakash Gupta, called an emergency meeting on Monday evening in what was a damage control exercise.
Even as the local party leaders are engaged in the blame game, sources said that some tribal organisations had built pressure on the local leadership and the two candidates to withdraw their names to lend an easy passage to Maya Iwanate.
The re-election for mayor’s post had become imminent following disqualification of former mayor Devrao Umredkar and eight other corporators. The caste scrutiny committee had found the caste certificates of the nine members invalid.
“This problem arose because the party did not have a group leader in the NMC house,” is the justification that city President Jaiprakash Gupta has given. But his opponents in the party, namely his predecessor Sheikh Hussain, are baying for his blood, by holding demonstrations in the city and demanding his removal.
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