MUMBAI, Feb. 20 -- A day after a splinter group of nine corporators from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pledged its support to the Congress-led Bhiwandi Secular Front (BSF) for the mayoral elections of Bhiwandi-Nizampur Municipal Corporation (BNMC), Congress on Thursday announced that Samajwadi Party (SP) - one of the members of BSF - is not a part of the bloc anymore as it has chosen to ally with Shiv Sena. Congress has also decided to nominate BJP's rebel corporator Narayan Chaudhary as its candidate for the mayoral elections to be held on February 20, and has ordered its group leader Tariq Momin to issue a whip directing all the corporators to vote for Chaudhary in the polls. Momin has been nominated for the position of deputy mayor. If all goes according to Congress's plan, this will be the second municipal corporation where the party will elect a mayor, after Latur. It will be a shot in its arm as the party recently lost the mayoral elections of Chandrapur Municipal Corporation to BJP due to infighting and Shiv Sena (UBT)'s decision to support BJP at the eleventh hour. Congress had emerged as the single largest party in the 90-member BNMC elections held on January 15 by winning 30 seats. BJP followed with 22 seats, NCP (SP) 12 seats and SP six seats. Smaller parties such as the Vilas Patil-led Konark Vikas Aghadi (KVA) and Javed Dalvi-led Bhiwandi Vikas Aghadi (BVA) won four and three seats each respectively. An independent also succeeded in winning the civic body election. As the Congress was away from the majority mark - of 46 -- by 16 seats it formed BSF along with NCP (SP) and SP. Together, their tally stood at 48. But when SP eyed the position of mayor cracks appeared in the front. With the help of nine BJP corporators, Congress will be able to elect its mayor without SP's support, as they now have 51 seats, declared Maharashtra Congress chief Harshwardhan Sapkal, on Thursday. "This is a big jolt to BJP that has been splitting parties in the state," Sapkal said. "We tried to take SP and independent corporators along to reach the majority mark by not aligning with BJP or Shiv Sena, but things did not fall in place. Now, we can elect our mayor with the help of the splinter group." Sapkal also clarified that Chaudhary was associated with Congress in the past and all the nine corporators have left the BJP and its ideology. Maharashtra president of SP Abu Asim Azmi however questioned Congress terming BSF as a secular front, underling that "Congress is choosing a corporator for the position of mayor who won the election on a BJP ticket"....