Khadse-Mahajan bury their hatchet to save power in Jalgaon Zilla Parishad post polls

Mumbai: The specter of losing the 30 year old stranglehold on power in the Jalgaon Zilla Parishad (ZP), prompted arch rivals senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Eknath Khadse and Girish Mahajan to bury their hatchet to ensure the party retains power in the civic body. In a keenly fought election, BJP’s Ranjana Patil was elected as the president and Lalchand Patil was elected as the deputy president.

In the final result, the BJP bagged 34 votes whereas the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate got 30 votes. In a 67 member civic body, the BJP had just about had a wafer thin majority of 33 members, NCP 16, Shiv Sena 14 and Congress 4 members. After the elections were over both the leaders fed each other sweets and pretended as if it was all hunky-dory.

Fully aware of the implications of Shiv Sena joining hands with its new found Maha Vikas Aghadi allies the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) joining hands to keep it out of power even in civic body polls, Leader of Opposition in Legislative Assembly Devendra Fadnavis accompanied by Mahajan brokered a truce with Khadse in Jalgaon. Ahead of the crucial elections to the twin posts of president and deputy president, Fadnavis, Mahajan and Khadse met over morning tea. Khadse had held the two of being responsible for sabotaging his political career.

Friday appeared to be somewhat better day as the BJP managed to win the coveted post of Standing Committee chairman in Shiv Sena ruled Kalyan-Dombivali Municipal Corporation (KDMC). Here, BJP corporator Vikas Gajanan Mhatre was elected to the Standing committee chairmans post with the active support of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and Congress.

The election to the twin posts in Aurangabad Zilla Parishad were postponed for tomorrow citing constitutional and technical issues. Here the reports are that 6 Congress corporators and 2 Sena corporators have split. The BJP is backing former Sena president Devyani Dongaonkar who is contesting as an Independent. She claims to be enjoying the support of 14 Sena corporators.

As against this yesterday, the BJP stood no chance in the election to the two posts in Kolhapur Zilla Parishad, the home turf of state BJP president Chandrakant Patil and in-laws place of party president Amit Shah. It was because of the lack of the support base which prompted Patil to hunt for a safe assembly constituency of Kothrud in Pune city.

In Nashik ZP too the MVA managed to win both the posts upsetting the BJPs calculations. In Sangli ZP, the BJP retained the two posts with Sena MLA Anil Babar lending his support to the BJP much to the dislike of the Sena.