Sena goof-up gives Cong a free seat in Upper House

MUMBAI, JUNE 16: It now appears that Dilip Deshmukh, younger brother of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Congress candidate for the La...

MUMBAI, JUNE 16: It now appears that Dilip Deshmukh, younger brother of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Congress candidate for the Latur legislative council seat, has the Shiv Sena to thank for his unopposed entry into the upper house. Following an agreement between the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, the Latur-Osmanabad-Beed seat had been left for the former to contest. But in the rival camp, the Sena and the BJP scripted a comedy of errors with candidates from both parties withdrawing from the contests. Sena nominee Ravi Gaikwad was the one who backed out at the last moment, thus paving the way for Dilip Deshmukh’s unopposed election.

Initially, it appeared that Ravi Gaikwad had decided to throw in the towel fearing a Congress-NCP win by a huge margin, but now it has been confirmed that Gaikwad had no alternative but to withdraw from the contest as the Sena had failed to deliver the required authorisation letter to him. Of course, for Vilasrao Deshmukh, his brother’s election is a major political victory since it exposes the Sena-BJP’s inability to corner the chief minister.

For the Congress, NCP and the Sena-BJP alliance, the elections are important, since it will decide their strength in the upper house. At present the Sena-BJP is the largest group in the council with 16 members each, which puts their group’s strength at 32, while the Congress has 12 members and 14 members belong to the NCP.

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The constituencies going to polls on Saturday are Parbhani, Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli, Amravati, Nasik, Nasik teachers, Konkan graduates, Mumbai teachers and Mumbai graduates. For the Shiv Sena, the election from the graduate constituency will be a prestige issue, since it has fielded veteran party leader and former cultural affairs minister Pramod Navalkar, who has been representing the constituency for the last two consecutive terms. Earlier, Madhu Deolekar (BJP) represented the constituency. Though it has been recognised as a traditional stronghold of the Sena-BJP alliance, in tomorrow’s election, it will not be a cake walk for Navalkar in view of the presence of NCP nominee Narendra Verma and Congress candidate Raghavan Sarathy in the fray. So far as the campaigning for Navalkar is concerned, not just former chief minister Narayan Rane and Sena leaders Udhav and Raj Thackeray, but even Sena supremo Bal Thackeray has addressed a meeting of party workers to ensure Navalkar’s victory. MPCC PresidentGovindrao Adik campaigned for Sarathy, while Sharad Pawar spared time for Verma. Unfortunately, for Verma, he has been locked in an unexpected controversy due to allegations made by his younger brother against him.

In the Mumbai teachers constituency, Ramesh Joshi, sitting member, Sanjeevani Raikar and Arvind Vaidya are locked in a multicornered contest, while in the Nashik division teachers constituency, G V Kulkarni, Gyandeo Kharade, Sayaji Kharat, Tukaram Darekar and Vasant Desale are in the fray. For both constituencies, no party has officially extended support to any of the contesting candidates. In the Konkan division graduates constituency, there will be a straight contest between BJP’s Ashok Modak and NCP’s Harischandra Chavan.

Though an agreement has been reached between Congress and NCP for the Parbhani, Amravati-Wardha, Chandrapur-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli constituencies, in Nasik, Congress will contest against the NCP nominee, and the Shiv Sena and BJP will contest the elections in an alliance.

Nasik will witness a triangular contest, since Vasant Gite (Shiv Sena), Gopal Gulwe (Congress) and Devidas Pingale (NCP) are in the fray.

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