BMC to witness quadrilateral contest

Mumbai, Jan 4 (UNI) The election to the prestigious Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), scheduled for February one, is set to be a quadrilateral contest between the newly formed Third Front, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), the Congress-NCP and the Shiv Sena-BJP combine.

The Third Front ''Mumbai Vikas Secular Front'' comprises dalit leaders Ramdas Athavale, Prakash Ambedkar, Samajwadi Party, CPI, CPM and PWP. The Front has organised its first meeting tomorrow to discuss the seat-sharing arrangement among all the parties.

The MNS, led by Raj Thackeray, will also field its candidates in all the 227 constituencies.

Political observers feel that formalisation of the Third Front and delay in forming an alliance with the NCP may hurt the prospects of the Congress, which is making a determined bid to wrest power from the ruling Shiv Sena in the Asia's largest and richest civic body. Even the city unit of the Congress is riddled with factionalism despite its president Gurudas Kamat's efforts to rejuvanate the grassroot workers.

Meanwhile, the stalemate between the Congress and NCP over seat- sharing for the Mumbai and Thane civic bodies continues. The Congress has rejected the NCP's demand for 77 seats and is not averse to 55-60 out of the total 227 seats in BMC. While the NCP, which claims to have a stronger presence in neighbouring Thane, is reluctant to give an equal share to Congress in that city.

Mr Kamat has reiterated that his party is not willing to concede more than 60 seats to NCP.

''NCP is yet to get back to us with their response,'' he added.

City NCP president Sachin Ahir said the ball of formalising the alliance to defeat Shiv Sena-BJP in Mumbai lay in the court of the Congress.

''We are ready to contest all the 227 seats on our own,'' he added.

Congress-NCP sources said a meeting between AICC general secretaries Margaret Alva, Ahmed Patel and NCP leader and Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel will be held in Delhi this week to iron out differences.

UNI