The Congress on February 6 named former corporator Ravindra Dhangekar as its candidate for the upcoming bypoll to Kasba Peth Assembly constituency in Pune district of Maharashtra.
Mr. Dhangekar, a former leader of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), had joined the Congress in 2017. He has been pitted against BJP’s Hemant Rasane. The bypoll to the Kasba Peth Assembly constituency has been necessitated owing to the death of sitting BJP MLA Mukta Tilak — a scion of Lokmanya Tilak’s family.
Schisms in MPCC
Meanwhile, schisms emerged within Maharashtra Congress after senior leader and former Minister Balasaheb Thorat wrote to party high command about ‘internal politics’ plaguing the party.
Mr. Thorat’s letter was aimed at Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) chief Nana Patole. On Feb. 4, Mr. Thorat’s nephew Satyajeet Tambe accused Mr. Patole of hatching a “conspiracy” against the Tambe and Thorat clans in order to push them out of the Congress and defame them.
Mr. Satyajeet Tambe, who won the recent Nashik MLC poll with a thumping majority, has charged that Mr. Patole had deliberately sent him the wrong ‘AB’ form which forced him to contest as an independent candidate.
