The Church in City (CIC), a forum through which the Roman Catholic Church speaks on various issues, including involvement of community members in the society said that six of its members have made it to the list of two political parties. However, none of them are from the Catholic community, failing in the very idea with which the initiative was started even though CIC was open to suggesting names from outside the community.

Surprisingly, five candidates are from one party and one area, which is not as populated as compared to others that have a larger Catholic population. The forum had planned to ask political parties to consider names suggested by them for the upcoming BMC elections with the idea to provide the best representation from their wards. DNA had earlier reported how the proposed exercise under which the Church was going to provide names of the candidates has not taken off as yet.

The names that were suggested are Shaheda Khan from ward number 64 whose names figures in Shiv Sena's list and Maya Rajput (ward 65), Sudha Singh (ward 67), Rohan Rathod (ward 68), Renu Hansraj (ward 69) and Aneesh Makwaney (ward 71), from Amboli region are from the BJP.

Surprisingly, no names were suggested from IC Colony, Orlem, and Bandra west areas among others, where the community has good strength.

"I can't say why only names from these wards were suggested and why we do not have people from other wards. The purpose of the exercise was to ensure that the best candidates are represented. We will not be asking the community or anyone else to vote for any candidate or party. It goes against what the Church stands for," said Willie Shirsat, Chief Secretary, CIC.

On community members who managed to get seats from various political parties, Shirsat said,"Those people are not the ones who came to us or were suggested by us." Other catholic groups too which were approaching political parties for better representation to community members said that they were disappointed with the outcome.

"We are disappointed as around 12 could have been given tickets. If this continues, we will ask them to stand as independent candidates," said Dolphy D'Souza, former president of Bombay Catholic Sabha, who had met Congress party representatives.

When asked why other parties were not approached, D'Souza said, "It is not that we did not approach other parties. Other members of our community did approach them and we wrote letters to all political parties stating that the community be reflected in wards with good numbers."