After being defeated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Sangli municipal polls on Friday, the Congress claimed on Saturday that more than a third of the BJP’s candidates had been poached from other parties.
The BJP won control of the Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad Municipal Corporation in western Maharashtra for the first time, winning 41 seats in the 78-member House and ousting the Congress from power.
The Congress won 20 and its ally National Congress Party (NCP) got 15 seats.
Commenting on the result, State Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant alleged that out of the 78 candidates fielded by the BJP, 29 were poached from other parties. “The Congress and NCP need to learn a lesson from this,” he said. Rather than fighting over how many seats each party should contest, it is more important to see which party can more win more seats, Mr. Sawant said.
Considering the poaching of candidates and the use of “money and power” — allegedly by the BJP — the result in Sangli was not bad, Mr. Sawant said.
The BJP also won control of Jalgaon Municipal Corporation in north Maharashtra in the civic election.
