Mumbai, Feb 4 (IANS) Amid infighting between two groups of Congress, the central leadership on Wednesday finally intervened to achieve consensus on installing the party’s mayor in the Chandrapur Municipal Corporation in Maharashtra.
As per the directions issued by the central leadership of the party, Congress’s Chandrapur Lok Sabha MP Pratibha Dhanorkar is set to have a final word on deciding the mayor, while the deputy mayor’s post will be given to the Congress legislative party leader Vijay Wadettiwar’s group of corporators. A group supporting the party to achieve a majority mark will get the standing committee chairperson’s post.
Following the meeting, the Congress sources confirmed that the solution has been achieved. “It has been decided that the post of Mayor in Chandrapur will be allotted to the Dhanorkar group, while the Deputy Mayor position will go to the Vijay Wadettiwar group. Additionally, the role of House Leader in the Municipal Corporation has been assigned to the Wadettiwar group. It was also resolved that the Chairperson of the Standing Committee would be awarded to the party that provides support to the Congress,” said a senior party leader.
In the 66-member Chandrapur Municipal Corporation, the Congress party emerged single largest party by winning 27 seats, while it has the support of three members of its ally, the Bharatiya Shetkari Kamgar Paksh (BSKP). Congress still requires four more corporators to reach a majority. Currently, Thackeray’s Shiv Sena holds six seats, while the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi has two. Consequently, the responsibility of mobilising the remaining four corporators rests with Pratibha Dhanorkar.
For the last two weeks, the groups of Dhanorkar and Wadettiwar had locked horns over the mayoral post. So much so that the corporators belonging to the Dhanorkar group carried out registration as a group independently. Maharashtra Congress chief Harshvardhan Sapkal held four meetings with both leaders to achieve a consensus. Despite that, the infighting continued, forcing the central leadership to intervene.
On Tuesday, Wadettiwar had taken its group of corporators to Delhi and held a meeting with K.C. Venugopal, General Secretary (Org). The state Congress observer and former MLA Sunil Kedar accompanied them along with Wadettiwar.
Kedar later held a meeting with Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant, after which Sawant announced the party’s decision to support Congress in Chandrapur. “There is no question of supporting anyone else. The Congress and we will be together in Chandrapur and Parbhani,” said Sawant.
–IANS
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