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Journalism of Courage
Resolving their much-discussed seat-sharing formula for Maharashtra Assembly polls without hiccup, the BJP and Shiv Sena have decided to contest on 164 and 124 seats, respectively, with the former set to play the big brother in the decades-old alliance.
The BJP, which on Tuesday announced its first list of 125 candidates, leaving out nine sitting MLAs, has stated that smaller allies such as the Republican Party of India (A), led by Union minister Ramdas Athawale; Rashtriya Samaj Party; Shiv Sangram; and Ryat Kranti Party will be accommodated from its quota of seats.
The party also promised the Sena two additional council (MLC) seats from its quota.
Maharashtra goes to the polls on October 21. Results will be announced on October 24.
Among those named in the first list is Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who will contest from his home turf of Nagpur South West and is vying for his fourth consecutive term as MLA.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah have both announced Fadnavis’s name for the CM post.
The BJP has repeated 91 sitting MLAs, and is accommodating 10 “outsiders” — senior leaders from opposition Congress, NCP and Independents who joined the saffron party of late.
Names of senior BJP ministers Vinod Tawde, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, former minister Eknath Khadse, and party’s chief whip in Assembly Raj Purohit are missing from the first list.
A top source in the party said, “Candidature of all leaders embroiled in controversies has been withheld. But the (BJP) central leadership is likely to consider their names for the second list.”
Among state ministers who made it to the BJP’s first list are Sudhir Mungantiwar (Finance minister, Ballarpur seat), Girish Mahajan (Water Resources, Jamner), Pankaja Munde (Rural Development, Parli), Ashish Shelar (Education, Bandra West), Vidhya Thakur (Minister of State, Goregaon), Yogesh Sagar (MoS, Charkop).
Speaker in outgoing Assembly, Haribhau Bagde, who is 74, has also made it to the list despite the party’s unofficial cutoff age limit of 75. He will contest from Phulambri, in Aurangabad district.
Maharashtra BJP president Chandrakant Patil will contest the Vidhan Sabha elections for the first time – he replaces the party’s sitting candidate, Medha Kulkarni, on Kothrud seat in Pune district, considered among the party’s safest seats.
Fadnavis’s personal assistant Abhimanyu Pawar will be the BJP candidate from Ausa, in Latur district. A former BJP activist who joined Fadnavis’s office when the latter assumed charge as CM in 2014, Pawar is no stranger to politics and had been nurturing the constituency over the last five years.
Most Congress and NCP MLAs who recently joined the BJP were rewarded with tickets. The party indicated that they have a strong hold in their respective constituencies, which will work to the party’s advantage.
Former Leader of Opposition in Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, who got the Housing portfolio after joining BJP, has been fielded from his home seat Shirdi. Former NCP legislator Shivendrasinh Raje Bhosale, a descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji’s family, will contest from Satara, while former Congress minister Harshvardhan Patil is BJP’s candidate from Indapur. Former NCP MLA Rana Jagjitsinh Patil, a relative of NCP chief Sharad Pawar, has been fielded from Tujlapur seat.
While the BJP sees women as a sizeable voter constituency, the first list has only 12 women candidates (9.6 per cent).
The Sena and BJP had contested separately in 2014. The BJP won 122 seats, followed by the Sena’s 63, Congress’s 42 and NCP’s 41 seats. Smaller allies and Independents together won 20 seats.
