Congress won 24 seats in the BMC polls, its lowest tally in Mumbai civic election history.
Senior leader Bhai Jagtap demanded Mumbai unit chief Varsha Gaikwad’s resignation on moral grounds.
The BJP took control of the BMC, ending Uddhav Thackeray’s family’s three-decade hold.
A demand for accountability erupted within the Mumbai Congress on Saturday after the party registered its poorest-ever performance in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections, with senior leader Bhai Jagtap calling for the resignation of city unit chief Varsha Gaikwad on moral grounds, according to PTI.
The call came a day after the Congress’s tally slipped to 24 seats, down from the 31 it had secured in the 2017 elections to the 227-member civic body, PTI reported. The setback has once again exposed long-simmering factionalism within the party’s Mumbai unit.
Gaikwad, who heads the Mumbai Congress, has faced criticism over both the electoral outcome and the candidate selection process. Former Mumbai Congress president and MLC Bhai Jagtap said he had raised concerns internally but was ignored.
"When candidates were selected, I was told that tickets were distributed based on a survey. I didn't object that time, but when I asked for the survey, it wasn't shown to me," Jagtap told PTI Videos, adding that the party’s showing marked a historical low.
According to PTI, the Congress contested the civic polls without aligning with its Maha Vikas Aghadi partners. Instead, it entered into an alliance with the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP) and the Republican Party of India (Gavai), jointly contesting 152 seats. None of the allies managed to win a single seat.
The elections proved decisive for the city’s political balance. The BJP wrested control of the BMC from Uddhav Thackeray, ending his family’s three-decade-long hold over the cash-rich civic body, PTI reported.
In the final results, the BJP emerged as the single largest party with 89 seats, while the Shiv Sena won 29. Among Opposition parties, Shiv Sena (UBT) secured 65 seats and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena won six. The AIMIM bagged eight seats, the NCP three, the Samajwadi Party two, and the NCP (SP) was reduced to a single seat.
According to PTI, the Congress’s diminished presence in the civic body has triggered fresh questions over leadership and strategy in Mumbai, with internal dissent now spilling into the open.
(With inputs from PTI)
