The Bharatiya Janata Party will contest 146 seats, leaving four of its quota seats to be contested by allies, including Yuva Swabhiman Party, Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, Republican Party of India (Athavale), and Jan Surajya Shakti Paksha.
BJP with allies will contest 150 out of the total 288 seats, leaving 138 to Shiv Sena and NCP, reiterating it will continue to remain a big brother in the MahaYuti alliance in Maharashtra Assembly elections slated for November 20.
Shiv Sena has already announced 65 candidates and NCP has declared names of 49 candidates till date. They both have to declare nominees in 24 seats.
Hours after BJP published its third list of 25 candidates, the party declared that Yuva Swabhiman Party would also contest Badnera, where sitting legislator Ravi Rana will contest, whereas RSP legislator Ratnakar Gutte will fight again from Gangakhed constituency.
BJP has left Gangakhed to RSP, quite interestingly; its founder Mahadev Jankar has already announced his decision to go solo.
Party has left Kalina's seat to RPI (Athavale), who had seriously expressed displeasure for not getting its due share in the MahaYuti. RPI (Athavale) will soon announce its nominee.
It also plans to renominate its founder Vinay Kore from the Shahuwadi constituency in Kolhapur district.
BJP has also allocated four seats from its quota to its allies. The move has come in the wake of a meeting last week of Union Home Minister Amit Shah with Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar.
This also is a message to its allies that the BJP cares for their share of the seats and power.
Initially, the BJP, declaring 146 candidates, preferred to stick to sitting legislators without any experiment of bringing fresh faces. According to the insiders, it was done avoiding rebellion and intra-party bickering, especially taking lessons from Karnataka elections.
Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, filing his nominations today said, he would emerge as winner with a record margin besides he added MahaYuti will return to the power in the state too.
"The Ladki Bahin, Ladki Bhau and others will unreservedly vote for MahaYuti", he mentioned.
Whether Fadnavis would emerge the candidate of the Chief Minister post after the MahaYuti returned to the power has been belied down by Fadnavis.
"I have remained Chief Minister for five years and later again for three days. For me, becoming Chief Minister is not an issue, but the priority is for MahaYuti to once again win the elections to take forward the development agenda which has already been launched," he added.
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