Eknath Shinde moves all corporators to hotel amid Uddhav's 'Sena's mayor' remark
Mumbai: The Shiv Sena has decided to move its newly elected corporators to a luxury hotel as the race to pick the next Mumbai mayor heats up.
The Eknath Shinde-led outfit contested 90 seats and won 29 in the Mumbai civic polls, results of which were announced on Friday.
A senior party leader said the corporators were being moved to a luxury hotel in Bandra to help them "refresh" after a hectic election season.
The leader, however, gave no clarity on how long the corporators will be housed in the luxury hotel.
Another party functionary cited orientation of newly elected members behind the move, adding the corporators will be housed in the hotel for a couple of days.
The move comes amid Shiv Sena-UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray's remark earlier in the day that his party could install its mayor in the metropolis if God wills.
"It's my dream to install a Shiv Sena-UBT mayor in Mumbai, and if God is willing, this dream will be realised," Thackeray said, interacting with party workers.
The BJP thinks that it has finished off the Sena-UBT but it was not the case, said the former Maharashtra chief minister whose party won 65 seats in the 227-member civic body, more than the Eknath Shinde-led faction which won 29 seats.
"The BJP couldn't finish off Shiv Sena-UBT on the ground," he said, adding that the saffron party used all means but "could not buy loyalty."
"They (BJP) have registered victory through betrayal for mortgaging Mumbai. Marathi Manoos will never forgive this sin. The battle has not ended, but it has just begun," Thackeray told party workers.
Speaking at a press conference later, Thackeray said the BJP was a party on paper and not "on the streets", otherwise it would not have been forced to break other parties, use erasable ink in elections, and misuse state machinery.
Shinde's 28 corporators are crucial for the BJP to elect their mayor for the first time in the city.
The BJP won 89 seats in the 227-member Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
The Shiv Sena bagged 29 seats, while the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena-UBT managed 65, and MNS got 6 seats.
The Congress, which fought in alliance with Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, bagged 24 seats, AIMIM 8, NCP 3, Samajwadi Party 2, and NCP-SP got just one seat in the BMC.
