The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has queered the pitch for the Shiv Sena in the Legislative Council elections, which were held for six seats in Maharashtra on Monday, by backing the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate in Nashik.
According to sources in the BJP’s Nashik unit, the party decided to support NCP candidate Shivaji Sahane instead of the Sena’s Narendra Darode. The decision was reportedly taken at a late night meeting on Sunday under the district’s Guardian Minister Girish Mahajan and the BJP’s city unit chief Kishor Kalkar.
The Nashik seat has a total of 644 voters and the Shiv Sena leads the party-wise representation with 207 voters, followed by the BJP with 167, the Congress with 100 and the NCP with 71. The voters of the other parties add up to 99. “A BJP-NCP alliance will make things difficult for the Sena candidate,” said a BJP leader on condition of anonymity. BJP’s reported support for the NCP candidate comes on the heels of the Sena’s decision to field Shrinivas Wanga as its candidate for the Palghar Lok Sabha bypoll on May 28. The BJP has fielded ex-Congressman Rajendra Gavit.
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The shadow of Palghar is expected to be cast on polling in the Raigad-Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg seat in Konkan region. The NCP has fielded Aniket Tatkare, who is backed by parties including Narayan Rane’s Maharashtra Swabhiman Paksha, the Congress and the Peasants and Workers Party.
Meanwhile, rebel NCP leader Suresh Dhas, who is the BJP’s candidate for the Beed-Latur-Osmanabad seat, has expressed confidence in comfortably winning the seat. Mr. Dhas said, “I am confident of winning the seat by a margin of 100-150 votes. Our party has received a good response in the voting across these three districts in the State.”
The Beed-Latur-Osmanabad seat is also a prestige battle between the two estranged Munde cousins: BJP leader and State Rural Development Minister Pankaja Munde and NCP leader Dhananjay Munde. The seat has 1006 voters, with the NCP and the Congress represented by 527 voters, the BJP by 321, the Sena by 64 and other independents by 94.
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Corporators in civic bodies, municipal councillors, and members of the zilla parishad and the panchayat samiti are eligible to vote.