Sharad Pawar’s NCP woos Prithviraj Chavan for Satara seat; he says, ‘will contest only if…’

The NCP (SP) has been looking for a candidate for Satara Lok Sabha seat after its sitting MP Sriniwas Patil refused to contest citing health reasons.

Chavan successfully contested Lok Sabha polls from the erstwhile Karad Lok Sabha constituency for three consecutive terms in Lok Sabha polls of 1991, 1996 and 1998. (Express photo by Ganesh Shisekar)

WITH Sharad Pawar-led NCP struggling to find a candidate to contest Satara Lok Sabha seat, it has turned to senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan whom it sees as a ”strong candidate” to retain the seat that the party had won in October 2019 bypoll. The NCP (SP) has been looking for a candidate for Satara Lok Sabha seat after its sitting MP Sriniwas Patil refused to contest citing health reasons.

”State NCP president Jayant Patil had met me yesterday at my residence. We discussed the Satara seat as well as some other seats,” Chavan told The Indian Express but refused to reveal the details of the discussion.

Chavan, however, said if he is asked to contest from Satara, he will do it only on Congress ticket. ”I can contest from the Satara seat provided I am fielded on a Congress ticket,” he said.

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Chavan successfully contested Lok Sabha polls from the erstwhile Karad Lok Sabha constituency for three consecutive terms in Lok Sabha polls of 1991, 1996 and 1998. Karad was his family’s traditional constituency represented by his mother Premala Chavan and father Dajisaheb Chavan for several decades before he decided to contest in 1991. He lost to NCP candidate and current MP Shrinivas Patil who was the candidate of the newly launched NCP in 1999 polls.

As per an NCP insider, Jayant Patil tried to convince Chavan to contest on NCP ticket. Though he agreed to contest, Chavan kept insisting that he would prefer to contest on Congress ticket. The issue is now before party chief Sharad Pawar, said an NCP leader.

Senior NCP leader Ankush Kakade said said the party has been searching for a strong candidate for the Satara seat. ”We have various names before us but we want a candidate who is a sure-shot winner. Prithviraj Chavan is a strong candidate. If he contests from Satara for us there’s no doubt that we will win the seat…But finally, our party chief Sharad Pawar will take a decision in this regard,” Kakade said.

The NCP (SP) has been hard-pressed to find a replacement for Satara seat after sitting MP Patil expressed inability to contest. He had defeated Udayanraje Bhosale who had won the seat as an NCP candidate in 2019 general election but later resigned to join BJP. He was defeated by Patil in the bypolls held alongside the assembly polls in held in October 2019. Bhosale has been seeking renomination from the Satara seat. However, the BJP remains undecided as the NCP led by Ajit Pawar and Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde are also demanding the seat.

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Meanwhile, Congress leaders said if Chavan contests Satara seat, it will generate a positive atmosphere not only for the Congress but also for the Maha Vikas Aghadi. ”After Ashok Chavan left Congress, Congress now has only a few big leaders in the state. If Chavan decides to contest, MVA will gain with his presence on the poll field,” said a Congress leader.

Chavan on his part said,” Whoever is fielded by the NCP, the Congress and MVA will extend full support and campaigning for his victory.”

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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