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Journalism of Courage
As the BJP core committee meets in Delhi for two days from Wednesday, aspirants for the Pune Lok Sabha constituency, with former mayor Murlidhar Mohol among others considered to be the favourite for the seat, are waiting with bated breath.
BJP executive president Amit Shah is on a two-day visit to the state and held a meeting with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde of the Shiv Sena, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar of NCP, and party leaders on the seat-sharing arrangements within the alliance for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
While the BJP had declared a list of 195 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections a few days ago, it did not have any names from Maharashtra. It is expected that the names of candidates for the Maharashtra Lok Sabha seats the party is contesting as per the seat-sharing arrangement with the Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party will be announced.
The Bharatiya Janata party is likely to declare candidates for other Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, including that for Satara, Sangli, Madha, and Solapur.
For the Pune Lok Sabha seat, which the BJP had won consecutively in the last two elections, Mohol’s name is on the top among other contenders Jagdish Mulik and Sunil Devdhar. However, there are speculations that a surprise candidate for Pune may be announced considering the political situation in the city after last year’s defeat in the Kasba bypoll elections.
“I am in charge of the election for the Pune seat. I will work to make the party candidate win, irrespective of who contests. The objective is to win a seat to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister for the third time,” said Mohol.
In Satara, the BJP is likely to again field Rajya Sabha MP Udayanraje Bhosale, who had lost in the bypoll to Shrinivas Patil of the NCP. The Madha seat was won by the BJP in 2019 but there is opposition to sitting MP Ranjit Naik-Nimbalkar from leaders of the local unit of the party and alliance partners, making it tough for the BJP to decide the candidate.
The BJP had got Jaisiddeshwar Swami elected from Solapur in 2019 but the party might consider a change of candidate this year considering that the Congress is going to put up a strong candidate.
As per the seat-sharing arrangement, the Baramati and Shirur seats are likely to be contested by NCP-led by Ajit Pawar while the Maval, Kolhapur, and Hatkanangale constituencies will be with Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena.
