Convene meets to elect ZP president before March 20, state to collectors, Mahayuti tussle over president’s post

Kolhapur: The state rural development department has instructed district collectors of 12 districts, where zilla parishad (ZP) and panchayat samiti (PS) elections were held two weeks ago, to convene special meets to elect the ZP president and PS chairman before March 20. . On Feb 7, the voting for 12 ZP and 125 PS elections were held. The results were declared on Feb 9. Out of the 12 districts, BJP emerged the single largest party in 7, Shiv Sena and NCP in 2 and Mahavikas Aghadi in 1 in Sangli where NCP(SP) emerged the single largest party. Two weeks later, Mahayuti allies are still in discussion over sharing of power. The tug-of-war is going on among the Mahayuti allies at the ZP where there is no clear winner. At ZP where there is clear winner for example in Pune ZP, NCP is a clear winner, in Solapur BJP is a clear winner, there is no dispute and the party with clear majority will get the president's post. . However, in other places, such as Satara, Sangli and Kolhapur, BJP need to take along other two allies with it to come to power. However BJP wants the president's post for its member to begin with. The party want its president first if there is post-sharing arrangement. In Kolhapur, NCP has won 20 seats, BJP 12, Shiv Sena 9, together they are in position to safely come to power. NCP wants the president's post for full five terms, while BJP too has expressed its claim over the post. "It is quite natural that NCP will want the post, but BJP too has claims over the president's post. Only question we have is which party member will assume the post first," said BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Dhananjay Mahadik. In Sangli BJP won 16 seats, Shiv Sena 7 and NCP six. NCP there wants the president's post first as tribute to its leader Ajit Pawar, who died in a plane crash. Together Mahayuti has won 29 seats and with the help of two seats from other parties it can come to power. On other hand MVA has 30 seats on its side and hoping to get support from either Shiv Sena or NCP with whom MVA parties had an understanding during the election.