Confident of winning Mumbai mayor seat: Congress

After having won the Lok Sabha and assembly elections, Congress-NCP combine intends to break the Shiv Sena-BJP rule in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) by winning the Mayor elections which are to be held tomorrow. The Congress sounds confident of winning the coveted seat of Mumbai mayor.

"We are very much sure of winning the seat of Mayor. The mayor will be from the Congress while deputy mayor will be from the NCP," leader of opposition in the House, Rajhans Singh told PTI here.

The Congress and other opposition parties have a total of 109 seats. The Congress has 76 corporators, NCP 14, Samajwadi Party 7, MNS 6, Republican Party of India (RPI) 3, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) one and two independent.

The total strength of the ruling Sena-BJP combine in BMC is 115. Shiv Sena has 81 corporators, BJP 29, Akhil Bharatiya Sena 2, and Independent 3. A candidate needs 113 votes to win the mayoral election.

The Congress-NCP had begun drawing strategies to overcome the gap of six. "The strategy is under wraps," Singh said. Revenue minister Narayan Rane has fielded Congress candidate Presila Kadam for the post of Mayor. Contesting against Kadam is Shiv Sena candidate Shraddha Jadhav.

For the post of deputy mayor NCP's Vidya Chavan is fielded against BJP's Shailaja Girkar. Two of the Sena-BJP corporators and one from the Congress-NCP have lost their right to vote in the mayoral elections due to pending cases against them.