The Congress on Sunday announced its first list of 51 candidates for the Maharashtra Assembly election, naming party bigwigs and repeating most sitting MLAs.
The list does not include former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who represents the Karad South constituency. He is being persuaded to contest the Satara Lok Sabha seat.
The list includes former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, who lost the Lok Sabha election on his home turf in Nanded. State unit chief Balasaheb Thorat will contest the Sangamner seat in Ahmednagar district. Leader of the Opposition Vijay Vadettiwar will contest the Bramhapuri seat in Chandrapur.
Congress’s lone Lok Sabha MP Suresh Dhanorkar from Chandrapur has managed to secure a ticket for his wife, Pratibha, from Warora constituency in the same district.
The list also includes, sitting MLAs K.C. Padvi from Akkalkuwa (ST) in Nandurbar, Yashomati Thakur from Tivsa in Amaravati, Amit Deshmukh from Latur city, Basavraj Patil from Ausa in Latur, Praniti Shinde from Solapur Central, and Vishwajeet Kadam from Palus-Kadegaon in Sangli to name a few. The party’s all-India Scheduled Caste cell president Nitin Raut will contest from Nagpur North (SC).
While the senior-most MLA of the Congress, Madhukrrao Chavan, has been given another chance from Tuljapur in Osmanabad district, Ruturaj Patil from Kolhapur South is the newcomer on the list.
The Purandar Assembly constituency had become a bone of contention between the Congress and NCP, with each claiming it had the strongest candidate. The NCP has finally relented, and decided to support Congress candidate Sanjay Jagtap for this seat.
Mumbai and around
In Mumbai, meanwhile, the Congress announced candidates for nine seats, including sitting MLAs Amin Patel from Mumbadevi, Varsha Gaikwad from Dharavi and Naseem Khan from Chandivli.
Former MLAs Ashok Jadhav and Chandrakant Handore will contest from Andheri West and Chembur respectively, while MLC Ashok alias Bhai Jagtap will be the party candidate from Colaba. Former MLA Baba Siddiqui’s son Zishan will contest from Bandra East, while Mumbai corporator Suresh Koparkar is in the fray in Bhandup West.
Youth congress leader Ganesh Yadav will contest from Sion-Koliwada, former MLA Muzaffar Hussain will be fielded from Mira-Bhayander, and Rohit Salve will be the party’s face in the Ambernath (SC) constituency.
Interestingly, the party has not announced names for the Wadala and Malad constituencies, which it won in 2014. Wadala MLA Kalidas Kolambkar has already joined the BJP, while Malad’s Aslam Sheikh is reportedly in talks to defect to either the BJP or Shiv Sena.
The party is also facing infighting over the Kalina seat, with allegations of senior party leaders trying to deliberately field a weak candidate.
Apart from Aslam Sheikh, the first list has also not named D.S. Ahire in Sakri (ST) and Kashiram Pawar from Shirpur (ST), both in Dhule district. Rahul Bondre from Chikhli in Buldhana district, Siddharam Mhetre of Akkalkot and Bharat Bhelke of Pandharpur, both in Solapur district, also don’t figure in the list. These six MLAs are reportedly in talks to switch to the ruling coalition.
