Ajit Pawar to decide if NCP will contest BMC polls alone or in alliance with Mahayuti: MLA

Mumbai, Dec 17 (PTI) The Nationalist Congress Party is ready to contest the January 15 Mumbai civic polls independently, but the final decision on the issue will be taken by NCP president and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, party MLA Sana Malik said on Wednesday.

The NCP is a constituent of the ruling Mahayuti, which also consists of the BJP and Shiv Sena.

However, the BJP has made it clear it will not ally with the NCP for polls to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) as long as its leader and former state minister Nawab Malik remains head of the outfit's election management committee for city polls.

Sana Malik, daughter of NCP leader Nawab Malik, told reporters her party has two options -- going it alone in BMC polls or forging an alliance with Mahayuti partners (BJP and Shiv Sena).

The NCP is ready to contest polls to the 227-member BMC independently, but the final decision on the issue will be taken by Ajit Pawar, she insisted.

"The Mahayuti allies haven't contacted us directly, but we have got to know about their opposition to my father Nawab Malik's involvement in election management for Mumbai," she said.

The MLA maintained that though her father heads the NCP election management committee for Mumbai polls, there are other leaders in the party who also take political decisions.

"The election committee was set up to study the party's position in Mumbai in the last nine years," she said.

The MLA informed that the committee headed by her father has prepared a report and its members will meet Ajit Pawar to discuss the future course of action.

Sana Malik claimed opposition to her father was political in nature.

She said NCP leader Shivajirao Nalawde met BJP minister Ashish Shelar on Tuesday without authorisation from her party leadership.

The BJP has said it will not hold talks with the NCP for the BMC polls as long as Malik heads its election management panel. The saffron party's opposition to the former minister stems from a criminal case against him. Malik is facing money laundering allegations and is accused of having links with associates of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, charges he says are false. PTI MR RSY