Mumbai: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Saturday expelled its 18 corporators who had supported the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Ahmednagar Municipal Corporation (AMC) elections a fortnight ago. The NCP also removed its district president in this connection.

These corporators had supported the BJP in electing its mayoral and deputy mayoral candidates in the AMC. NCP state president Jayant Patil said that despite the party whip not to support saffron parties or cast votes in favour of them, these corporators had defied the party order. Hence, a show cause notice had been served to them and they had been asked for an explanation within seven days. However, they had failed to give an explanation which is why they had been dismissed from the party.

NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said that as Ahmed-nagar district president Manikrao Vidhate had not issued the whip to all 18 newly-elected corporators, he, too had been removed. “We will see what legal act-ion can be initiated against the corporators in the upc-oming days,” said Mr Malik.

Meanwhile, Congress spo-kesperson Sachin Sawant said, “We welcome the move, which is a very strong signal to party cadres as the people of this country are looking forwards to all secular parties coming together and unitedly fighting agai-nst the communal and fascist BJP government. This action will definitely stren-gthen the resolve of the masses to defeat the BJP.”   

All 18 newly-elected corporators of the NCP voted for the BJP mayoral candidate Babasaheb Wakale on December 28, 2018. He was elected Ahmednagar mayor after polling 37 votes despite the party having just 14 seats.