THE BJP, which has wielded overall control over the Mumbai District Central Cooperative Bank (MDCCB), suffered a body blow on Thursday as deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar got ally Sena on board to get NCP’s Siddharth Kamble election to the post of the bank’s president.
The MVA allies’ agreement seems to have resulted from a closed door meeting between Pawar and Shiv Sena Minister Aaditya Thackeray where Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s confidant Milind Narwekar was also present.
BJP had fielded MLC Prasad Lad, one of the bank directors, against NCP-Sena combine’s Siddharth Kamble after its Praveen Darekar withdrew from the contest. Lad lost by two votes.
The vice-president post went to BJP’s Vitthal Bhosale who defeated Shiv Sena’s Abhishekh Ghosalkar.
In terms of the number of board directors, BJP is ahead with nine — Praveen Darekar, Vithal Bhosale, Anand Gad, Kavita Deshmukh, Vinod Borse, Sarod Patel, Nitin Bankar, Anil Gajre, and Prasad Lad.
The NCP has eight directors — Sandeep Ghandat, Shivajirao Nalawade, Puroshattam Dalvi, Vishnu Gamare, Siddharth Kamble, Jayshree Panchal, Nandu Katkar, and Jijaba Pakhar.
The Shiv Sena has three — Sunil Raut, Abhishekh Ghosalkar and Shilpa Sarpotdar. For the fiercely contested bank president’s post, the NCP and Sena together had 11 directors against BJP’s nine.
This is being seen as a setback for both the BJP and Darekar. Darekar said, “The ruling NCP and Shiv Sena seem to have targeted me. Till now, bank polls were held in a cordial atmosphere with individuals rising above party and caste politics. But it is evident the CM and deputy CM have used their power to attack me.†I hold the post of Opposition leader in council, so they used their power to settle scores.â€
However, an NCP official said, “Sena and NCP had more numbers and so they won. Why should BJP or its leader complain?â€
