Deputy Mayor Chandrakant Mokate of Shiv Sena and two other office-bearers of the Sena-BJP alliance in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) have resigned to their posts last night fllowing Shiv Sena Executive president Uddhav Thackeray announcing that the two-and-a-half-year-old "Pune Pattern" in the civic body has ended.
The Pune Pattern in PMC had brought together NCP and the saffron parties in 2007 elections. NCP, which emerged the single largest party in the election, that threw up a hung house in PMC, had caused a flutter when it chose to ally with Sena-BJP to wrest power in the 144-member PMC, keeping away Congress, its partner in state and central governments.
Now, the decision to end ties with NCP was taken to avoid confusion among voters in rural areas, Uddhav Thackeray had said yesterday. "The maligning of NCP's image and that party's readiness to align with Congress has led to scrapping of the Pune Pattern," Thackeray had reasoned for snapping ties with NCP.
Even the Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi also had recently urged party high command not to ally with NCP in the forthcoming Assembly elections unless that party severed its links with Sena-BJP to prove its secular credentials.
Party-wise member strength in PMC is-NCP 48, Congress 42, Shiv Sena 21, BJP 25 and MNS 8.
