'Lost 10 seats by less than 500 votes': Congress gets back some of its core voters; hopes for bigger revival in Mumbai

MUMBAI: Congress performed below its own expectations in the BMC elections and secured 24 seats, seven fewer than it had in 2017.

The party mostly blamed the poaching of its ex-corporators, lack of expenditure compared to the governing parties and less media space among the reasons for not reaching its expectations.

The task before Congress is now to ensure that the elected corporators do not defect, as they did from the previous House, many of them to Shinde’s Sena.




However, the party sought to boost the morale of its cadre by highlighting that, after eight of its ex-corporators of the 31 elected in 2017 had left, it was left with 21 ex-corporators, and taking that tally to 24 is a good sign for the party.

The party had earlier set a target of winning 50 seats in BMC. Congress MLA Aslam Shaikh, three of whose relatives contested the elections and won, said that despite all odds, his party had managed to win so many seats, which he described as a positive outcome in the given circumstances.

Party MLA Amin Patel said, “With these many corporators, we will be 10% of the total strength in BMC, and our team is a mix of old-timers and new corporators. With proper guidance, we’ll make them work better for the public, which in turn will help the party.”

Though AIMIM secured eight seats in the city, Congress does not consider it a threat and stated that AIMIM had mostly snatched the seats of Samajwadi Party. Aslam Shaikh said the Congress won many of the seats in Muslim-dominated areas.

Shaikh said, “We lost 10 seats by less than 500 votes.”

It was believed that Congress voters who shifted to Shiv Sena (UBT) in the recent past, while they were in alliance in the Lok Sabha and assembly polls, did not shift back to the party as expected. Congress tried to consolidate its votes after discontinuing its alliance with UBT Sena in the city and forming an alliance with smaller parties, including the Prakash Ambedkar-led VBA. AICC secretary Sachin Sawant said, “We will analyse all the factors.”