Murlidhar Mohol is BJP candidate for Pune, no new faces for Sangli, Ahmednagar and Madha seats

Mohol was the mayor of Pune from 2019 to 2022. As mayor, he had gained the confidence of senior party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home minister Amit Shah, and managed to bring them to Pune for various functions.

Mohol has before him the task of dealing with his rivals within the party. He hails from the Kothrud assembly segment, where he had run into differences with Medha Kulkarni, who was recently elected to the Rajya Sabha, after she openly came out against party leaders for “deliberately ignoring her in party activities”.

As the mayor of Pune, Mohol had managed to increase his popularity, but also made rivals within and outside the party. Last week, there was a banner outside the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) main office against Mohol, saying, “The party made you chairperson of the standing committee then the mayor, general secretary of state unit and now MP as well? Enough. Will work to defeat you.”

Incidentally, the big concern for the BJP would be to pacify its traditional vote bank of Brahmin community in the city, which had publicly expressed disappointment last year when the party had fielded Hemant Rasane, a non-Bramhin, from the party bastion of Kasba in the bypoll and the party had to face defeat from the Congress.

The BJP had won the Pune seat in the previous two elections with Anil Shirole elected in 2014 and Girish Bapat in 2019.

In other parliamentary constituencies of western Maharashtra, the BJP has once again given tickets to sitting MPs Sanjaykaka Patil in Sangli, Ranjit Nimbalkar in Madha, Sujay Vikhe-Patil in Ahmednagar.

The BJP has also given tickets to Pankaja Munde in Beed and Sudhakar Shringare in Latur in Marathwada.