Union Home Minister Amit Shah will hold his first election rally in Maharashtra at Nanded on Thursday. The voting for Nanded Lok Sabha constituency will take place on April 26. BJP has fielded sitting MP Prataprao Chikhlikar as its candidate. Congress has fielded former MLA Vasantrao Yashwant. The Nanded Lok Sabha seat, which is among the eight constituencies in Marathwada region, has always remained the biggest challenge for BJP. In February, BJP succeeded in luring Congress leader and former chief minister Ashok Chavan to join the party. It was a huge setback to the Congress as Chavan was a strong leader with his hold not only in Nanded, but in entire Marathwada region. Being the Maratha face, Chavan proved a prize catch for the BJP. In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Ashok Chavan, who had then contested as Congress candidate, was defeated by BJP’s Prataprao Chikhlikar. Earlier, Chikhlikar was also in Congress and switched sides before the elections. Despite many efforts, the BJP has not been able to make deep inroads in Nanded. Even during Narendra Modi wave in 2014, Ashok Chavan had defeated BJP candidate Digambar Patil. In 2019, however Ashok Chavan lost the polls due to division of votes with Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi playing the spoiler. While BJP has made Ashok Chavan a Rajya Sabha MP, his network at grassroots is something the right-wing party is looking to consolidate in the coming polls. The Nanded Lok Sabha seat has a sizeable presence of Dalits and Muslims who have been loyal to Congress. The foremost test for Chavan will be to see whether his followers at ground are also ready to make the political switch from Congress to BJP. The Nanded Lok Sabha seat has six Assembly segments-Bhokar (vacant after Ashok Chavan who resigned as Congress MLA), Nanded (represented by Balaji Kalyankar of Shiv Sena), Nanded South (Mohanrao Hambarde of Congress), Naigaon (Rajesh Pawar of BJP), Deglur (Jitesh Antapurkar of Congress), Mukhed (Tushar Rathod of BJP).
