The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday released its second list of 22 candidates for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections. The party fielded sitting MLA Devyani Suhas Pharande from the Nashik Central, ending the suspense over the seat. BJP MLA Pharande has been winning the seat since the 2014 Assembly elections.
Suspense loomed over the Nashik Central seat as the party had not announced its candidate from here in its first list and had nominated three fresh faces in the North Maharashtra region. These include Anup Agarwal from Dhule City, Pratibha Pachpute from Shrigonda in Ahilyanagar, and Amol Jawale from Raver in Jalgaon.
The party has named seven sitting MLAs in the second list including Devayani Pharande (Nashik Central), Prakash Bharsakale (Akot), Kumar Ayalani (Ulhasnagar), Ravindra Patil (Pen), Bhimrao Tapkir (Khadakwasla), Sunil Kamble (Pune Cantonment), and Samadhan Autade (Pandharpur).
Other names in the list are Ram Bhadane from Dhule Rural, Vijay Kamalkishor Agrawal from Akola West, Milind Ramji Narote from Gaschiroli (ST), Deorao Vithoba Bhongle from Rajura, and Shyam Ramcharanji Khode from Washim (SC).
Out of the three Mahayuti alliance partners, Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the the BJP have each released two candidate lists, while Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena has announced one list so far. After the announcement of the second list the BJP has announced candidates for 121 seats in total.
The alliance, however, is yet to finalise the seat-sharing details. Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule said that discussions are still underway to decide allocation of seven to eight seats. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has finalised its seat-sharing arrangement for 255 seats, with 85 seats each for NCP (SP), Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress.
Maharashtra Assembly elections are scheduled to be held on November 20. The counting of votes will be held on November 23.