Hingoli, Nanded, and Parbhani went to polls in the second phase on April 26. Osmanabad (now Dharashiv) and Latur voted in the third phase on May 7. Now, the remaining three Lok Sabha seats in Marathwada - Aurangabad (now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), Jalna, and Beed are set to go to polling on Monday, May 13.
The campaigning for these three seats ended on Saturday amid grand processions and rallies. Now, the wait for the polling has begun.
In the past few days, the political atmosphere has been heated with the public meetings of important leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, and Shiv Sena (UBT) Chief Uddhav Thackeray in these three constituencies. The war of allegations and counter-allegations was seen during the public meetings.
PM Modi's public meeting was held for the campaigning of BJP candidate Pankaja Mundhe at Beed a couple of days back. Later, Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde’s public meeting was held in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar on Friday.
In his speech at Marathwada Sanskrutik Mandal, Thackeray criticised BJP leaders and Shinde. Thackeray said that the people will teach a lesson to the rebels who called his party a "nakli Shiv Sena" in the elections. BJP has broken his Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP, still, they are afraid of them and are giving them offers to join NDA, Thackeray alleged.
During the public meeting held at ZP Ground, Shinde said, Thackeray had joined hands with Congress and was now talking the language of Pakistan, and then why should we go along with him? In the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, Shiv Sena was given the secondary treatment and hence we left the government, he claimed, The Mahayuti government had brought several schemes for farmers, women, and deprived classes in just two years, he added.
Meanwhile, a four-fold contest is seen in the Chhatrapati Sambhajiangar constituency between Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Chandrakant Khaire, Shiv Sena candidate Sandipan Bhumre, AIMIM candidate Imtiaz Jaleel and the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) candidate Afsar Khan. The leaders have played their cards and the future of these candidates will be decided on May 13 by the people.
Similarly, there is a direct flight between the Congress candidate Kalyan Kale and BJP candidate and Union Minister of State for Railways Raosaheb Danve in the Jalna constituency whereas there will be a contest between BJP candidate Pankaja Munde and NCP (SP) candidate Bajrang Sonawane for the Beed constituency.
Meanwhile, other than several local issues, the Maratha quota issue will remain the most important one here as it was Jalna's Antarwali Sarati where activist Manoj Jarange launched his protest which had its effect across the state.
