Mumbai, May 21
Exit polls’ predictions that the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance would win most of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra are giving sleepless nights to the Opposition Congress and Nationalist Congress Party.
Leaders of the two outfits, who held meetings separately, admitted that they could not carry the workers of both parties to work for the alliance candidates. Congress leaders have told their party leaders that NCP cadres often worked for rival candidates to defeat their nominees.
Congress leader Husnabanu Khaliphe alleged that the local NCP unit did not work for the party’s candidate, Navinchandra Bandivadekar, and instead campaigned for Nilesh Rane, who contested under the banner of his father Narayan Rane’s Maharashtra Swabhimani Paksh (MSP).
Incidentally, the Congress is mulling disciplinary action against Congress MLA Nitesh Rane, who also campaigned for his brother Nilesh instead of the party’s official candidate.
Congress candidates in at least half-a-dozen seats were suspicious about the NCP working to defeating them. Leaders of both the Congress and the NCP are also doubting whether Raj Thackeray’s video campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi had any effect. “Many Marathi-speaking people chose to stay at home instead of going out to vote. But Gujaratis came out in large numbers, unlike in the past,” a Congress leader from South Mumbai said. — TNS
from The Tribune http://bit.ly/2LXw6xv
via Today’s News Headlines
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