Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have begun the hunt for candidates to contest bypolls to the Bhandara-Gondia and Palghar Lok Sabha seats scheduled to be held on 28 May.
Both these seats were held by the BJP but a pre-poll alliance between the Congress and the NCP, and the Shiv Sena’s role especially in the Palghar bypoll have made things difficult for the BJP, admit party functionaries.
Last week, reiterating their resolve to form a pre-poll alliance against the BJP, the Congress and the NCP decided to contest the bypolls together. Senior NCP leader Praful Patel said in Delhi last week that the two alliance partners, who had contested the 2014 general and Maharashtra assembly elections independently, would henceforth contest all elections against the BJP together, including the two bypolls. Patel said the two parties had reached an understanding at a meeting between NCP chief Sharad Pawar and his Congress counterpart Rahul Gandhi. He added that the NCP would contest the Bhandara-Gondia seat and the Congress would field its candidate from Palghar.
The bypoll to the Palghar seat, reserved for scheduled tribe (ST) candidates, has been necessitated by the death in January of BJP member of Parliament (MP) Chintaman Wanga, who had defeated his rival from the Bharatiya Vikas Aghadi, a local party, by nearly 240,000 votes in 2014.
On 3 May, Wanga’s sons Shriniwas and Praful joined the Shiv Sena, claiming that the BJP leadership in state had ignored them after their father’s death. Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, while inducting the Wanga family members into the party, said the Shiv Sena had not yet decided to contest the Palghar bypoll though Sena cadres in the constituency were keen that the party put up its candidate.
Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who was blamed by the Wanga family for ignoring them, clarified on 5 May that the BJP was keen to nominate someone from the Wanga family and that there was some misunderstanding that had led the family to join the Shiv Sena. Fadnavis also said that he had spoken to Thackeray on the phone in the last week of April about the Palghar by-poll and the Sena chief had agreed to support the BJP if a Wanga family member was given the ticket.
A state BJP leader, who did not want to be named, said the party was trying to persuade the family to reconsider its decision. “But they will have to quit the Shiv Sena and join the BJP,” the BJP leader said.
The by-poll to the Bhandara-Gondia seat in Vidarbha has been necessitated by the resignation of former BJP MP Nana Patole, who has since joined the Congress. Patole, who resigned the seat in December last year, had joined the BJP just ahead of the 2014 elections and defeated NCP leader Praful Patel by more 1.5 lakh votes in 2014 from this constituency. As the NCP has decided to contest the by-poll, Patole is unlikely to be a candidate as he has joined the Congress.
Praful Patel, who has represented this constituency four times, has not yet decided to contest, according to an NCP leader who did not want to be named.
The BJP, which has a strong other backward class (OBC) support base here, is looking for a strong OBC candidate to help it retain the seat, the BJP leader cited above said.