The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday announced four candidates for the biennial election to the State Legislative Council to be held on May 21.
The election will be held for nine seats, and in case of unopposed polls, the BJP will get four seats and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Shiv Sena two each. The remaining seat will go to the Congress.
The BJP’s candidates are Gopichand Padalkar, Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil, Pravin Datke and Dr. Ajit Gopchade. Of the four, two are new inductees into the party an indication that it is in no mood to pamper senior leaders like Pankaja Munde, Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Eknath Khadse.
It was speculated that the party would nominate these three for the Council polls. Ms. Munde lost the Assembly poll from her stronghold last year, while Mr. Khadse and Mr. Bawankule were denied tickets.
According to sources, former Chief Minister and leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis maintained control over deciding the candidates, as three of them are said to be close to him.
Mr. Datke, a party loyalist and the Nagpur BJP president, is closer to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. According to sources, his candidature is a result of the need to balance caste equations within the party. The BJP has also maintained the social equation by picking three OBC candidates and one Maratha name in the form of Mr. Mohite-Patil.
Dr. Gopchade is from Nanded and is the Maharashtra president of the BJP’s medical cell.
The other two candidates are imports to the the BJP from other parties.
Mr. Padalkar, a well-known Dhangar leader, unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Sangli as a candidate of the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi. He joined the BJP before the Assembly polls and was fielded against NCP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar from Baramati. Mr. Pawar won by a record margin.
Mr. Mohite-Patil is a former NCP leader and son of ex-NCP bigwig Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil. The Mohite-Patil family switched to the BJP before the Lok Sabha polls and helped the party win the prestigious Madha seat, once held by NCP president Sharad Pawar.
