Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will be contesting the assembly elections from Kopri-Panchpakhadi constituency in Thane city. The Shiv Sena on Tuesday released its first list of 45 candidates for the upcoming polls, nominating more than half a dozen state cabinet members from their respective seats.
The first list has the names of 37 sitting MLAs, all of whom comprise the core team of loyalists that defected alongside Shinde when he split the party last year and led a revolt against the then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.
Apart from this, the list has four new candidates and four former MLAs or relatives of MPs. Maximum names in the list are Marathas, the dominant community in the poll-bound state, which makes up a large chunk of the vote bank for all the regional parties. The list also includes three women candidates, including Manisha Waikar whose husband Ravindra Waikar made headlines when he won the Lok Sabha election by 48 votes. She is contesting from Mumbai’s Jogeshwari (East) in the suburbs.
The party has fielded ministers Gulabrao Patil, Deepak Kesarkar, Abdul Sattar and Shamburaj Desai from Jalgaon Rural, Sawantwadi, Sillod and Patan. Another cabinet member, Dada Bhuse, will contest from the Malegaon Outer assembly constituency in Nashik district. Ministers Uday Samant and Tanaji Sawant have been fielded from Ratnagiri and Paranda.
Another prominent leader Sada Sarvankar will fight the polls from Mahim in Mumbai. The party has also fielded the kin of several MLAs. From Rajapur, it has given ticket to Kiran Samant, brother of minister Uday Samant. Suhas Babar, son of the late legislator Anil Babar, will contest from Khanapur in Sangli district.
Abhijit Adsul, son of Sena leader and former Union minister Anand Adsul, will contest from Daryapur in Amravati district. Vilas Bhumre, son of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) Lok Sabha MP Sandipan Bhumre, will contest from Paithan.
With this, the Shiv Sena has become the second major political party to release its list of candidates for the upcoming polls for polls to the 288-member assembly. Its ally BJP had released a list of 99 candidates on October 20. The ruling Mahayuti, which consists of the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP, is yet to announce its seat-sharing deal.
(With PTI inputs)
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