Had BJP kept their old candidates happy and intact, some of them, who played major spoilsport would not have turned rebels. The party denied tickets to some of its loyalists, forcing them to contest either on the Babush-backed panel or as Independents in more than half-a-dozen wards.
The rebels managed to divide the votes with BJP losing in ward numbers 1, 7, 18 and 22 where it had high expectations of victory. Moreover, shifting former councilor Bharati Heble from her earlier ward number 13 to ward 11 proved to be doom. The reason: neither did she win in the new ward nor did the fresh face in ward 13 – Advocate Vishnu Naik, manage to get victory.
The rebels in ward number 1 came in the form of Dinesh Kankonkar and Mahesh Shirodkar, who were promised tickets but ditched at the time of finalizing candidates for the 30 wards. Similarly, their other rebel was in ward number 7 – Rahul Lotlikar, who after he denied the BJP ticket contested from Babush’s panel and won by 356 votes.
Ward number 18 had Ratnakar Fatarpekar and Sanadi Allaudin contesting against the BJP, as Independent candidates. Sources said that Allaudin was secretly backed by Babu Kamat, who was once a good pal of BJP’s Dattaprasad Naik but had a fallout just before the CCP elections.
Ward no 22 had Asmita Kerkar as the winner from the Babush backed panel. She too was denied a BJP ticket that led to changing her loyalty.
