BMC Elections: BJP wants separate manifesto for Civic polls

By Varun Singh – Mid-Day

Promises made ahead of polls by politicians are rarely kept, but the BJP feels it’s important the people know who’s making them. So, its coalition with the Shiv Sena and RPI (A) notwithstanding, the BJP, for the first time, is all set to release a separate manifesto for the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections. According to party insiders, a joint manifesto often ends up appearing as the mouthpiece of one party while the voice of others in the alliance is lost.

“We have formed a team comprising 12 people, who are currently developing the manifesto. It will highlight all the work done by us in the last five years. We will focus on important points covered from our previous manifesto and will ensure that our achievements are also noticed by the people,” said a BJP insider.

Teamwork
The party has even formed a 12-member team that’s working on the manifesto and their final meeting would be on January 10, where the layout and other details would be discussed.  The committee is being headed by ex-MLA Hemendra Mehta and consists of senior members like Ashish Shelar, Bhalchandra Shirsat, Shailaja Girkar, Atul Bhatkalkar and a few others.

When quizzed, Vivekanand Gupta, secretary, Mumbai BJP, said, “The party is coming out with a vision document for the city of Mumbai — how the city should be and how the party is going to function. We will also have a joint manifesto, but right now there are people in the party who do want a separate one to be there.”

BJP has 28 corporators heading important committees like improvement, tree, education and women & child welfare. For the last five years even the deputy mayor in the BMC has been from the party. Now, BJP is keen on highlighting all these posts and portfolios held by its members and the work done. The party is even planning to get the opinion of the youth on what kind of development and enterprises they want to see happening in the city.

Guarded response

The allies are, naturally, wary. “We will soon have a meeting, where Uddhav Thackeray, Gopinath Munde, Sudhir Mungantiwar and I will be present. Our main motive would be to have a single manifesto for the alliance.  If there are different manifestos, it would lead to confusion amongst the public as the development agenda has to be the same. I am for one manifesto for the whole coalition,” said RPI(A) chief Ramdas Athawale.

“There should only be one manifesto in an alliance. However, what Uddhavji decides would be final,” said Shiv Sena MLA Abhijit Adsul.

Source: Mid-Day