Pawar uses Dalwai as bargaining peg to woo Muslim votes

Dalwai, according to Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary Gurunath Kulkarni, is short of three votes from the BMC after he secures the first preferences of all parties barring the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Sena’s candidate Kanhaiyalal Gidwani is short by almost 20. Singh held detailed discussions with all leaders, including Dalwai to ensure that there are no slip-ups.

However, although the meeting was essentially for the Legislative Council polls, Singh gave enough indication of which way the wind was blowing by telling Pawar, “Our High Command is with you, no matter what. It is up to you to persuade yours.”Pawar had a typically cryptic reply, “Dalwai’s election will be the harbinger of a new message to the people,”: that there is a regrouping of the secular forces in the country. Pawar hoped that this would speed up the formation of the anti-Hindutva forces in the State, all of whom are playing tough in the pre-poll bargaining process currently underway.

The Congress is determined to ensure that there is a one-to-one contest between the Sena-BJP and the secular forces in Maharashtra but is equally adamant that it will not give in to unreasonable demands. Pawar is of the view that when push comes to shove, “no one will be irrational about sharing the seats which will be distributed according to respective vote percentages.” Which means, he explained, that it is willing to concede seats where it was pushed to third position like Akola, Mumbai North Central, Malegaon and Amravati but not where it won or was the runner-up.

However, the SP is most important to its scheme of things particularly in Mumbai, which is still reeling from the after-effects of the 1992-93 riots and bomb blasts. The Congress hopes that Sena supremo Bal Thackeray’s well orchestrated flirtation with the minorities since then will be neutralised by the SP’s unfettered support. But even as the MPCC parliamentary board, in the absence of concrete proposals from the other parties, begins its interviews of prospective party candidates on all 48 constituencies tomorrow, the SP today decided that it will contest only three seats from the metropolis, leaving the rest to be shared between the Congress and its other poll allies.

“We are not asking the Congress for any seats. We are telling them that we are fielding candidates in three out of six seats here and hoping the Congress agrees,” Azmi told The Indian Express. Party MLAs Sohail Lokhandwala and Nawab Malik are being nominated by the SP to contest the Mumbai South Central and Mumbai North Central seats respectively, he said. The third seat being eyed by the SP is Mumbai North West. “Probably we will field Akhtar Rizvi (the party’s 1996 candidate) from there and we hope the Congress will not create conflicting interests in these three seats. We will support them in the other constituencies,” Azmi added. Will the Congress give in? “Well, the political ground realities are there for all to see,” says Kulkarni.

“There were obstacles in our way last time when the Sena-BJP combine won 33 seats. I cannot tell you how far our negotiations with the other parties have come. But we are certain that there is a commitment on all sides, ours as well as theirs, to sweep aside those obstacles to maximise our advantages,” he adds.