In a major boost to it in the run up to the 2019 lok Sabha polls in the State, the BJP on Friday captured power in the municipal corporations of Jalgaon in north Maharashtra and Sangli in western Maharashtra.
The BJP virtually swept the Jalgaon Municipal Corporation (JMC) polls by winning as many as 57 seats out of a total 75 seats and decimated hitherto-influential political outfit led by former Minister and local Sureshdada Jain who controlled Jalgaon civic body for the last three and a half decades.
In the 78-member Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad Municipal Corporation (SMKMC) polls, the BJP secured a majority of its own by winning 41 seats as against 20 seats won by the Congress and 15 by the NCP.
Walking away with 57 out of the total 75 seats in the JMC, the BJP established supremacy over all the political parties. Its principal rival Shiv Sena managed to win just 15 seats in the JMC polls.
The Owaisi brothers-led All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (better known as MIM), which contested the JMC polls for the first time, bagged three seats. Significantly enough, the Congress and NCP drew a blank in the polls.
In the JMC polls, the BJP killed two birds with stone. First, the BJP virtually eliminated Jain — who was a Minister in the Shiv Sena-BJP Government between 1995 and 1999 and currently headed Khandesh Vikas Aghadi (KVA). The KVC, which was in power in the civic body, had contested the JMC polls on the Sena’s symbol “bow and arrow”.
Secondly, the BJP eroded the clout of its former Minister and senior party Eknath Khadse, whose writ in not just Jalgaon but entire north Maharashtra till he resigned from his post as the State Revenue Minister over irregularities in the purchase of a plot of land at Bhosari in Pune district.
After Khadse’s resignation, Fadnavis had empowered BJP’s relatively junior Minister and Girish Mahajan in Jalgaon district. So much so that a major share of the BJP’s victory in the JMC polls goes to Mahajan. A firm foothold in the JMC has strengthened the BJP in north Maharashtra — in which Jalgaon is one of the districts.
While the victory in the JMC poll helped the BJP enlarge its base in northern Maharashtra, the win in the SMKMC polls has set stage for widening its base in sugar cane- rich western Maharashtra which was once a bastion of the Congress and where the Sharad Pawar-led NCP has established a strong base even since it was founded in May 1999.
The Congress, then principal ruling party in the State, had captured power in the SMKMC polls in 2013, by winning 40 out of 75 seats in the civic polls. The NCP, which had controlled SMKMC the previous five years — in alliance with BJP for some time – could win just 18 seats.
However, the BJP made its presence felt in Sangli in 2014 lok Sabha polls as its candidate Sanjay Patil romped home by trouncing the Congress’ Pratik Prakash Patil by a handsome margin of 2,39,292 votes.
What was more significant about the 2018 SMKMC poll victory is that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis could not campaign much in the polls as he pre-occupied with addressing the situation arising out of the Maratha reservation agitation.
Meanwhile, thanking the people of Sangli and Jalgaon for the BJP’s tremendous victory in the two civic polls, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said: “ I am grateful to the people of Jalgaon and Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad.
The politics of development and confidence ushered in by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has contributed to the people accepting the BJP in elections after elections in the State”.
“The BJP’s victory in the two civic polls is an expression of confidence in the policies of the State Government and the BJP leadership. We have for the last four years been trying to solve the people’s problems, which had accumulated for the past 40 years. accept the people’s verdict with utmost humility. We will continue to strive for solving various problems of people in the State,” the Chief Minister said.