BETWEEN 2019 and now, the number of nomination forms received for the Maharashtra Assembly elections has doubled – from 5,543 to 10,905, as per the state Chief Electoral Officer. Perhaps no surprise then that the last day to file nominations in the state on Tuesday was marked by high drama, including a chopper flying in to make form delivery, a missing leader, a mad scramble, and at least one prospective candidate who was inexplicably delayed. Nashik district’s statistics deserved a special mention: of the 361 candidates who have filed nominations from here, as many as 255 did so on Tuesday. The leader who got late and hence missed filing his nomination “by minutes” was former Maharashtra minister Anees Ahmed. A Gandhi family loyalist, he had rebelled after the Congress picked Bunty Shelke for the Nagpur Central seat, which Ahmed has won three times in the past. Ahmed was promptly offered a ticket from the seat by the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA). However, as the minutes ticked away Tuesday, Ahmed failed to reach by the 3 pm deadline to file his nomination as a VBA candidate. He claimed he got delayed doing the paperwork, and then faced obstacles such as road closure, vehicular restrictions and even security protocols at the office of the Returning Officer (RO). He told PTI that while his associates were sitting inside with his token number, he was not allowed into the RO's office. With the RO not budging, Ahmed plonked himself at the office till 8 pm, saying he was “exploring options” to file his nomination. Not many were convinced that the seasoned leader would be so negligent as to miss a nomination deadline. Several were more inclined to believe the Congress had managed to placate its long-serving leader in a seat where Muslim vote is crucial. Another sulking leader, however, had his way in Mumbai's Mankhurd-Shivajinagar seat. NCP MLA and former minister Nawab Malik, who the BJP insisted could not be on the Mahayuti ticket, initially filed his nomination as an Independent. Wary of the BJP’s warnings, the NCP did not give him the needed A&B form, but then, five minutes to go for the deadline, the papers arrived. So Malik, who earlier got a ticket for his daughter Sana from his traditional seat Anushaktinagar, is now an official NCP candidate. In Anushaktinagar, meanwhile, the other NCP – the Sharad Pawar faction – had a few tense moments after the RO pointed to a discrepancy in the papers of its candidate Fahad Ahmad. A youth leader of the Samajwadi Party, who shot to fame after marriage to actor Swara Bhasker, Ahmad was not expected by anyone to be in the fray. But the newbie managed to correct the documents and affidavits and file his nomination by 1.40 pm – well in time. It was in Nashik, the district where everything seemed to be happening on the last day, that a chopper was put into nomination service. Miffed over NCP (Ajit Pawar) leader Sameer Bhujbal filing his nomination as an Independent against Shiv Sena candidate Suhas Kande in the district’s Nadgaon seat, the Shinde Sena flew in A&B forms via helicopter to its leaders Dhanaraj Mahale and Rajashri Ahirrao. So now, in a tit-for-tat, the two are in contest against NCP candidates – Mahale in Dindori against Narhari Zirwal, and Ahirrao in Deolali against Saroj Ahire. Both Zirwal and Ahire happen to be sitting MLAs. In the Thane seat, in contrast, the Shinde Sena got former mayor Minakshi Shinde to drop out at the last moment and not file nomination against the BJP's Sanjay Kelkar. The leader who made the most news though was Shinde Sena leader Shrinivas Vanga, the only sitting MLA of the party to be denied a ticket. After it became known that the Sena had replaced him in the Palghar ST-reserved seat, Vanga – the son of late BJP MP Chintaman Vanga – hit out, telling reporters he had committed a "grave mistake" by siding with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde in the rebellion in the party, and described Uddhav Thackeray whom he had deserted as a “dev manoos (god-like man)”. On Tuesday, his family claimed he was missing and “untraceable” since the evening before. They also expressed concern over his state of mind, though they did not file a police complaint. Early Wednesday morning, Vanga returned home, apparently on his own. He went away as he “needed to rest”, he said.
