Decks were cleared for the election of Shiv Sena candidate as the Mayor of Mumbai after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday announced that the BJP will not contest the March 8 Mayoral polls.
He also made it clear that the decision of the BJP should not be read as a "surrender" to ensure stability of his government.
"The people of Mumbai voted overwhelmingly for the BJP as they believed in our agenda of transparency in the civic administration. Shiv Sena emerged as the single largest party while we were two seats behind them. We did not get the numbers to have a Mayor of our own," Fadnavis told reporters at his official bungalow here.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena has 84 corporators in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) while the BJP falls two short of the formers count in the cash-rich civic body.
"BJP will also not contest elections for the post of Deputy Mayor and for the standing, improvement, education committees as well as for posts of chairpersons in the BEST committee," the chief minister said.
"We would have needed the support of other parties to have our Mayor," he said.
The BJP had two options, either to have a Mayor by taking outside support, which meant compromising on the issue of transparency, or justify the faith and trust given to us by the people, Fadnavis said.
"We chose the second option," he said.
"The issue of Mumbai Mayor has nothing to do with the stability of my government. It is stable. Yesterday, Shiv Sena Ministers attended the cabinet meeting and we agreed on various issues," he said.