The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) on Monday announced its first list of 100 candidates for the October 13 Assembly elections. The list includes some who garnered over one lakh votes the in the Lok Sabha polls.
The party has fielded candidates in 26 of Mumbai’s 36 Assembly seats and plans to announce four more names later. Among candidates who contested the Lok Sabha and figure in the Assembly list are: Shirish Parkar, who contested the Mumbai north Lok Sabha seat; Shishir Shinde, who contested the Mumbai northeast seat; Shalini Thakre, who stood from Mumbai northwest; Shilpa Sarpotdar, who stood from Mumbai north central; Rajan Raje, from Thane; and Bala Nandgaonkar, who contested from Mumbai south and came second to Milind Deora of the Congress who won the election. All of them polled over a lakh votes, with Mr. Shinde getting nearly a lakh more, which led to the downfall of the Shiv Sena in Mumbai and Thane.
Announcing the list, MNS president Raj Thackeraytold journalists that the remaining names would be released in the next two days. He did not specify how many more candidates the party was going to field. He made it clear that Shiv Sena rebels were not welcome in his party and that MNS was not set up with that aim in mind.
