Political observers in the state say that the DMK factor seems to have worked in Maharashtra in both phases. However, this DMK has nothing to do with the Southern party in power in Tamil Nadu. The DMK here has been coined for — Dalit, Muslim and Kunbi. Looking at the polling in different areas of Maharashtra, a political leader said that DMK is queuing up for votes in big numbers and parties need to strategise based on it. BJP sidelined all three sitting MPs in Mumbai All three sitting BJP MPs from Mumbai have been denied the ticket. Gopal Shetty, Manoj Kotak and Poonam Mahajan have been sidelined either owing to poor performance or negative survey reports. At a time when the party is fighting this election only on PM Modi’s face, the candidate hardly matters. Will an advocate candidate from BJP trump Congress’ woman nominee? Last time, an advocate contested from Mumbai North Central was BJP leader Mahesh Jethmalani who fought against Congress’ Priya Dutt in 2009. Dutt won that election. Now again another advocate is taking on a woman leader from the Congress in a different scenario from the same seat. Advocate Ujjwal Nikam has a task of breaking the repeat of 2009 while Varsha Gaikwad hopes to repeat the party’s performance. Poster in Nagpur to shame 10 lakh voters who did not vote An eye-catching poster commenting on people who abstained from voting has come up in Nagpur where polling was held on April 19. The Nagpur constituency recorded 54.3 per cent polling. The poster issued by a citizen who participated in the festival of democracy reads: Do you know 10,15,937 voters of Nagpur did not vote. Shame on you. In Nagpur it was a straight fight between BJP’s Union minister Nitin Gadkari and Congress district chief Vikas Thackre.
