Journalism of Courage
The decision by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), to support Congress candidate from Pune Lok Sabha seat Mohan Joshi, has bolstered his chances against BJP candidate Girish Bapat. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the MNS and AAP candidates had collectively received a total of 1.22 lakh votes. If all those who voted for either the MNS or AAP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections vote for Joshi this time, his vote tally is likely to go up significantly.
In a communication to Joshi on Thursday, secretary of AAP’s state unit Sanjay Sawant said party chief Arvind Kejriwal had urged workers and supporters of the party to vote for “candidates of secular parties to ensure protection of the democracy and Constitution”. The state unit of AAP had decided to declare its support for the Congress candidate in the interest of democracy, he said.
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“It is a good decision by the AAP to support the Congress candidate from Pune Lok Sabha seat. This would avoid division of votes, which is what happened during the 2014 elections,” said city Congress spokesperson Ramesh Iyer.
The MNS had declared its support for candidates of the Congress-NCP alliance earlier. The party had said it will not contest the Lok Sabha elections but would work towards defeating the candidates of the BJP-Sena alliance. MNS chief Raj Thackeray is likely to address a rally in the city for the alliance candidate.
City MNS leaders have gone a step further and decided to contribute towards the election fund of NCP candidate Amol Kolhe, who is contesting from the Shirur Lok Sabha seat.
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In 2014, the MNS candidate from Pune, Deepak Paigude, had received 93,502 votes and come in the third place, after BJP leader Anil Shirole and Congress leader Vishwajeet Kadam. Explaining the MNS’s decision to not contest the Lok Sabha elections this year, a party leader said, “We decided not to contest the elections and oppose the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance candidate to ensure that there was no division of votes”.
In the same year, AAP had contested the Lok Sabha elections for the first time and its candidate, Subhash Ware, had managed to get 28,657 votes in Pune.
The BJP, meanwhile, expressed confidence that its candidate Girish Bapat will win from the Pune seat irrespective of the support Congress-NCP candidates received from other opposition parties. “The BJP had performed extraordinarily in the 2014 elections. The victory margin for BJP will only increase in Pune in the forthcoming election,” said BJP legislator Medha Kulkarni.
