City Improvement Committee chair: Congress, NCP gear up for showdown in Pune

A political tussle is likely to take place between the ruling alliance partners, the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).

The Congress on Friday nominated its senior corporators as members of the City Improvement Committee (CIC) with an aim to capture the chairmanship of the panel.

Various political parties on Friday nominated their corporators as members of CIC, legal committee and women and child welfare committee of the PMC.


Congress nominated outgoing president of CIC, Virendra Kirad; former mayor, Kamal Vyavahare; former chairman of standing committee, Arun Dhimdhime and corporator Sanjay Nande.
Development plan (DP) of the city is being revised presently. The CIC would have a major role in finalisation of the DP and the panel’s control holds crucial in the last year of the present term.
Nomination of senior members by the Congress on CIC surprised many.

The party had recently eyed the chairmanship of standing committee by fielding its candidate, much to the embarrassment of NCP. The latter was keen to get the post.

Due to the political tussle between the two alliance partners, the NCP, in a surprise move, supported the BJP candidate for the post.

A senior Congress leader said the party wants to corner the NCP.
NCP nominated senior corporator and former chairman of standing committee, Subhash Jagtap; Datta Dhanakawade, Avinash Jadhav and Dnyaneshwar Shinde on CIC.

BJP and Shiv Sena appointed two corporators each as members of CIC. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) appointed one corporator.

The votes of BJP, Shiv Sena and MNS would be the deciding factor in the CIC polls.