Godse makes "violent" entry into poll arena

NASHIK, February 12: The Shiv Sena nominee for the Nashik parliamentary constituency, Rajabhau Godse, may enter the 12th Lok Sabha, rioting ...

NASHIK, February 12: The Shiv Sena nominee for the Nashik parliamentary constituency, Rajabhau Godse, may enter the 12th Lok Sabha, rioting and trespassing. Godse, a sitting MP, is locked in a straight fight against the Congress candidate Madhavrao Patil.

Godse, who is notorious in the district for his rowdiness, has already six cases of rioting and criminal trespass registered against him. Of these, three are pending in the court, while he has been acquitted in the rest. In the last elections, Godse had bagged the seat with a margin of about 73,000 votes.

The Sena nominee, however, has been getting lukewarm response from the BJP workers while the detractors within his own party have ensured at least some anxious moments during the electioneering. The Sena and the BJP workers have been at loggerheads on various issues over the past two years. Moreover, Godse has old differences with his party colleague and guardian minister of Nashik, Babanrao Gholap, who in turn, has differences with the BJP minister(and Nashik city MLA) Dr Daulatrao Aher.

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Godse’s trouble, however, seemed smaller when Sena chief Bal Thackeray and Raj Thackeray, campaigned for him. A deputy leader of the Sena, Arvind Sawant, has been camping in Nashik to keep detractors under control. The Thackerays have already warned Gholap and other local functionaries of the party of punitive action if Godse is defeated at the hustings. But Godse has been keeping his fingers crossed as the Nashik constituency has never re-elected an MP.

When it comes to intra-party wrangling, the Congress has to be a step ahead of others. The very nomination of Madhavrao Patil, was an attempt to curb warring groups at the local level. Patil is the founder-chairman of the Janalaxmi Cooperative Bank and controls the agricultural marketing cooperatives in the district. He is known as a generous banker and a soft-spoken man who is set to make his political debut.

Local Congress leaders had opposed his candidature pointing out that he was not a familiar face inrural areas, that he had links with the RSS and that he had attended Thackeray’s meeting at Malegaon in October 1997, when Prashant Hirey (the estranged son of former Congress minister Pushpatai Hirey) had joined the Shiv Sena. However, Patil managed to beat his detractors in the race for the ticket.

Patil’stumbling block is the traditional groupism within the Congress and he is making all out efforts to gain their support. Moreover, out of the six legislative assembly segments in his constituency, only one, Akola, is represented by a Congress MLA while the other five are with the Sena-BJP.Moreover, three ministers of the Manohar Joshi cabinet: Babanrao Gholap (Sena), Dr Daulatrao Aher (BJP) and Tukaram Dighole (associate member of Sena) are MLAs from Deolali, Nashik and Sinnar assembly segments of the Nashik Lok Sabha constituency.