Nagpur: Rashmi Barve is new Zilla Parishad chief, Kumbhare deputy

NAGPUR: Dairy development minister Sunil Kedar (Cong) prevailed over home minister Anil Deshmukh (NCP) as the former’s supporters bagged the posts of president and vice-president in Nagpur Zilla Parishad.
As Congress has 31 members out of a total 58, it was clear that the president would be from the party. However, its pre-poll ally NCP had won 10 seats and Deshmukh wanted to make his son Salil the vice-president.Kedar, however, refused to yield as he did not need the support of NCP.
The post of ZP president was reserved for SC (women). Rashmi Barve was elected unopposed. Chandrashekhar Kolhe, Dinesh Bang and Manohar Kumbhare had filed nominations for the post of vice-president but the first two withdrew at the last moment paving the way for Kedar supporter Kumbhare’s unopposed election.
In Akola ZP, BJP helped Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) retain the posts of president and vice-president. Akola ZP house has a strength of 53 while VBA’s figure was 22. It needed five more members to bag the posts. However, only three independents declared support and VBA was two short of majority.
Sensing that VBA did not have the numbers, leaders of Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP – constituents of the Maha Vikas Aghadi — held a series of meetings to capture the ZP. They wooed the independents with plum posts. However, they were also unable to muster the numbers and BJP with seven members was the key to government formation.
As BJP wanted to prevent MVA from coming to power at any cost, its seven members walked out of the House during the election reducing its strength from 53 to 46. Now VBA needed only 24 members to get its presidential candidate elected and it had 25 members.
Pratibha Bhojane and Savitri Rathod of VBA were elected as president and vice-president respectively.
In Washim ZP, Chandrakant Thakre of NCP was elected as president while Arvind Patil Ingole of Congress was elected vice-president. BJP or the other parties did not field candidates for these posts.
Meanwhile, in the Panchayat Samiti (PS) elections held in the district on Friday, Congress and NCP had the upper hand. There are 13 PSs in the district of which Congress bagged 8, NCP 2, NCP ally Shetkari Kamgar Paksh 1 and BJP 2.
Rekha Warthi of Congress is president of Nagpur Rural PS, Umesh Radke (BJP) – Kamptee, Ashwini Shivankar (BJP) – Kuhi, Ramesh Kilkane (Congress) – Umred, Durga Thaokar (Congress) – Mouda, Mamta Shende (Congress) – Bhiwapur, Baban Awhale (NCP) – Hingna, Meena Kawale (Congress) – Parseoni, Dhammapal Khobragade (Shetkari Kamgar Paksh) – Katol, Nilima Rewatkar (NCP) – Narkhed, Shravan Bhingare (Congress) – Kalmeshwar, Aruna Shinde (Congress) – Saoner and Kala Thakre (Congress) – Ramtek.
Despite having an alliance with the Sena at the state level, Congress and NCP leaders did not have any tie-up with the party in the district. Sena won only one seat in Nagpur ZP.