After a lot of suspense and drama, both factions of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Saturday declared their first list of candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Both the parties have taken significant time to declare their candidates; their allies had already declared a second list of candidates. Jayant Patil, leader of NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) announced the names of five candidates.
“Supriya Sule and Amol Kolhe have been retained from Baramati and Shirur constituencies, respectively,” said Patil, adding that Bhaskar Bhagre has been nominated from Dindori seat in Nashik district and former Congress MLA Amar Kale from Wardha. Bhagre will square off against Union minister and sitting BJP MP Bharati Pawar in Dindori (ST) seat.
Lanke, the sitting MLA from Parner, will face off against BJP MP Sujay Vikhe Patil from the Ahmednagar constituency. Political rivals, NCP (SP)s Kolhe and Shiv Sena Shinde groups Shivajirao Adhalrao Patil will come face to face. Few months ago, Ajit Pawar had said he brought Kolhe into the party and helped him win the last election, otherwise no one would have voted for him. Kolhe retaliated, saying that he was felicitated for good work in the Parliament and he had raised many questions about youths and Maharashtra.
Nilesh Lanke, who had left the Sharad Pawar-led party and joined the Ajit Pawar group after a vertical split in the party, has rejoined the NCP (SP) after a series of meetings last month. Lanke on Friday announced his resignation as MLA and said he would be returning to the Sharad Pawar-led faction. He will now face BJP MP Sujay Vikhe-Patil, son of senior BJP leader and state revenue minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil.
RSP given Parbhani seat from NCP quota
On the other side, Maharashtra NCP unit president Sunil Tatkare declared that Mahadev Jankar of Rashtriya Samaj Paksh (RSP) will be given the Parbhani seat from NCP quota. Apart from that, Sunil Tatkare and Sunetra Pawar will contest mfrom Raigad and Baramati constituency, respectively, for the NCP.
Tatkare said that Jankar is a prominent leader of the Dhangar Samaj Movement and fought for reservation in Maharashtra. Interestingly, initially Jankar was not considered by Mahayuti, but he had a meeting with Sharad Pawar and there was speculation that he may contest the polls from the NCP (SP). Later, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis intervened and convinced the NCP to give its Parbhani seat to him.
