Cong, NCP go aggressive in ZP, civic polls

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Cong, NCP go aggressive CAMIL PARKHE Tuesday, January 31, 2012 AT 10:58 PM (IST) Tags: Civic polls 2012,   Cong,   NCP The elections to zilla parishad, panchayat samitis and 10 municipal corporations in Maharashtra have will be yet another political battle fought by the five main parties in the state. The polls have come just a couple of months after the municipal councils polls, in which the Congress and the NCP had fared well. The battles-lines are expected to on the same lines as in the municipal polls. That is why the Congress and the NCP are in an aggressive mood while the opposition Shiv Sena and the BJP have been forced on the defensive.   The elections to 27 zilla parishads and 309 panchayat samitis will be held on February 7 and polls to 10 corporations, including Mumbai, Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad and Aurangabad, on February 16. Civic elections are also due in Nagpur, Thane, Nashik, Amravati, Kolhapur and Akola. The main contestants are the two constituents of the Democratic Front, the Congress and the NCP; the saffron alliance of the Shiv Sena and the BJP, which has been reinforced this time by the Republican faction led by Ramdas Athavale; and the comparatively new entrant in the state politics, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena led by Raj Thackeray. All the parties are gearing up for the polls and finding ways to woo the voters.   The crucial polls are being held as the Congress-led ruling front is completing half of its third consecutive term. In such circumstances, the ruling combine often faces the heat of the anti-incumbency wave. But thanks to the acts of commissions and omissions by both the Congress-NCP government and the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance, the municipal council poll verdict indicated that the ruling front faces no such wave. In fact, because of some turbulence in its own camp, it is the saffron alliance which  has been forced to lick its own wounds, leaving it with little strength to attack the ruling front with some effectiveness. The only political party outside the ruling front thoroughly enjoying the present political atmosphere and ready to exploit it for its advantages is the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. The local self-government poll will serve as a rehearsal for the state polls, scheduled two years later.    The panchayati raj and municipal council poll should have served as an ideal opportunity for the opposition to attack the ruling front on corruption scandals like the Adarsh housing complex in Mumbai and the nine-month imprisonment of Pune's suspended Congress MP, Suresh Kalmadi, in Tihar jail in the Commonwealth Games scam. But most opposition parties are busy setting their own house in order.   Senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde is the party's only mass leader in the state but he has been facing major setbacks in the past couple of years. He has little time to consolidate the party's base. He has been fighting a battle for survival in his own party with party president Nitin Gadkari. After threatening to quit the party and knocking at the door of other parties, Munde decided to stay put in the BJP but not without damaging his credentials. Now, the former deputy chief minister is facing a serious challenge on his home turf of Beed district from his nephew and MLC, Dhananjay Munde, who is openly hobnobbing with the  NCP. Gadkari and other Munde detractors are doing everything to marginalise Munde. So the BJP leaders have no time to train their guns on the ruling party or to give a fight in the panchayati and civic body polls. A wounded Munde is no position to play a vital role in galvanising the BJP and reviving its poll prospects. The  Shiv Sena is fighting a battle to retain its two-decade hold on power in Brihamaumbai Municipal Corporation. It faces a major threat from the combined forces of the Congress and the NCP. This is for the first time the two Congresses have come together in Mumbai civic elections. The presence of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in the previous State Assembly polls had helped the Congress-NCP to defeat the saffron alliance in Mumbai and to return to power for the third consecutive term. The ruling front hopes that the Raj Thackeray-led party will play a vital role in dethroning the Shiv Sena. The revolt of the Shiv Sena's Thane MP Anand Paranjape -- the party's only victorious nominee in the Mumbai-Thane belt in the last Lok Sabha polls -- has dealt a severe jolt to the party. It will have repercussions on the civic poll in Thane.     So it is no wonder that the ruling Congress-NCP front hopes to romp home at the hustings without much difficulty. All the opposition parties will really have to really work overtime during the remaining few days to deny a cake-walk for the ruling front, although the ruling front has performed no great wonders to stake claims to uninterrupted power. The opposition has to expose the misdeeds of the government and prove its own credentials. The verdict of the electorate will show who among the ruling group and the opposition plays its role effectively.