Urmila matondkar, kripashankar quit: has cong given up on mumbai?

A DISPIRITED MAHARASHTRA CONGRESS LACKS COMMON PURPOSE Mumbai elects 36 of the 288 legislators in the Assembly. In the 1999 election held within months of Sharad Pawar quitting with a

sizeable cohort of workers to form the NCP, the Congress managed to win 12 of the then 34 seats. The tally rose to 15 five years later, and 17 in the 2009 Assembly. In the 2014 election,

held in the after-glow of Narendra Modi’s stunning victory in the Lok Sabha, the Congress and the NCP contested separately; the Congress shrunk to five seats, the NCP could not win a single

one. In these 20 years, the BJP won eight seats (1999), five (2004 and 2009), and eventually 15 in 2014. This tally was a whisker ahead of its long-time ally Shiv Sena, with whom it had

snapped ties on the eve of the election. The Sena managed 14. Its claim to represent Mumbai was a wee bit dented. In the years since, the Congress has been lackadaisical and dispirited, and

has come across as a scattered unit without a sense of common purpose. Its leaders have appeared sub-regional to an extent that those from south Mumbai rarely, if at all, moved around in the

suburbs, and those from the suburbs further demarcated support bases on community or caste lines. The Congress has been functioning like a patriarch whose best days are behind him and whose

past laurels are of little use in today’s environment. Its continuing debacle in the city of Mumbai is mirrored in the resignations of Matondkar and Singh, and a handful of others who quit

in recent weeks.