Ticket tangle hits PMC polls as allies defy seat-sharing deals

Senior Sena leaders Uday Samant and Vijay Shivtare clarified that the alliance with BJP was intact (Representational image/File)

After the chaos for filing the nomination for the PMC election on Tuesday, political parties in Pune are busy again in negotiating with their respective alliance partners as most parties defied agreements and distributed party tickets to many candidates in haste.

The BJP had announced its alliance with the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena but the local leaders of Shiv Sena protested against the treatment given to them by the BJP during the seat-sharing talks. On the last day of filing nominations, the Shiv Sena issued letters to its aspirants in all 165 seats of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). “The BJP offered only 16 seats to us, which was not acceptable. Thus, we decided to file nominations in all seats,” said Shiv Sena’s Pune city chief Nana Bhangire.

Senior Sena leaders Uday Samant and Vijay Shivtare clarified that the alliance with BJP was intact and the top party leadership will resolve the issue through discussions before the last day of withdrawing nominations. “The nomination forms have been submitted for seats across the city. From my experience, I can say there will hardly be any candidate who will be withdrawing his nomination,” said Shiv Sena leader Ravindra Dhangekar.

Meanwhile, the BJP is learnt to have filed nominations for 165 seats by, including seven aspirants of alliance partner RPI(A), who will be contesting on a common symbol.

In the alliance between Ajit Pawar-led NCP and Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP), there were last minute changes with many NCP(SP) aspirants contesting on NCP symbol and vice versa. “The arrangement of candidates to contest on symbols of each other’s party was done based on popularity of the symbol in the different areas,” said an NCP leader.

In Gokhalenagar area, NCP (SP) aspirant Nilesh Nikam was made to contest on NCP’s symbol and ensure that all four candidates of the alliance contest on one symbol. Similarly, the four NCP aspirants in Kondhwa-NIBM area were made to contest as NCP (SP) candidates, considering the popularity of the symbol in the area after the response in the Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections, in which the NCP(SP) won the Lok Sabha election while its candidate got maximum votes in the assembly election.

“If there are candidates of both NCP and NCP(SP) contesting for the same seat, then one will be asked to withdraw to ensure there is no division of votes,” said an NCP(SP) leader.

In the Congress, Shiv Sena(UBT) and MNS alliance, the situation is much better with the alliance partners sticking to their agreement of seat-sharing, except on a few seats. “We were clear about the seat-sharing formula. However, if there is a problem in a few seats, it would be resolved through discussion and the weak candidate of either party will be asked to withdraw from the fray,” said a Congress leader.