Pune: NCP chief Ajit Pawar held a meeting of the newly elected PMC corporators to discuss the reasons for a below-par performance in the poll. He also met corporators from Sharad Pawar’s NCP as the alliance is planning to appoint two separate leaders of parties in PMC.Of the 29 municipal corporations which went to the polls on Jan 15, the elections in PMC and PCMC were the most intense as both factions of the NCP joined hands in these civic bodies. Despite the hype, the alliance performed poorly in both the civic bodies where Ajit Pawar’s party won 27 seats while Sharad Pawar’s NCP won only three seats in the 165-member PMC. In neighbouring PCMC, of the total 128 seats, Ajit Pawar’s NCP won 37 seats while Sharad Pawar’s party do not win any.At the meeting in Pune’s Baramati hostel on Monday, the presidents of both NCP city units were also present. Along with defining the role for the corporators, Ajit Pawar told them issues to take up while sitting in the opposition in PMC.“During the meeting, Ajit Pawar admitted that he was not expecting such a poor performance in PMC. He told the party’s office-bearers to assess what went wrong with the party’s strategy. He said that despite the failure, the alliance with NCP (SP) will continue,” a senior NCP office-bearer who was part of the meeting told TOI.Ajit Pawar also met three corporators of the NCP (SP), along with their party’s office bearers, in Pune. Shrikant Patil, Pune city unit chief of NCP (SP), told TOI, “We discussed the issues our alliance will raise in PMC. We also discussed how to maintain close coordination with each other in PMC for the entire term.”
