Fadnavis, Bawankule, Mate, Khopde, Meghe in BJP’s first list

 

 

While Maha Vikas Aaghadi (MVA) is still engaged in removing intra-alliance differences, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday declared the first list of its 99 candidates for State Assembly elections to be held on November 20. The list includes candidates from 23 constituencies from Vidarbha. There are total 62 Assembly seats in Vidarbha. On Saturday while interacting with mediapersons, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had informed that talks were completed with alliance partners and indicated that the list would be declared soon. Accordingly, BJP declared its first list on Sunday.

 

The leaders like Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis (South West Nagpur), State BJP President Chandrashekhar Bawankule (Kamptee), Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, Madan Yerawar, Krishna Khopde, Sameer Meghe, Shweta Mahale, Bunty Bhangadia and others figured in the first list. Barring a few, no change was made in the names of the candidates to be fielded from the constituencies in Vidarbha. After declaration of names of the candidates, Fadnavis and Bawankule, in their separate tweets, expressed gratitude towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP President J P Nadda and Central Election Committee. Fadnavis, in his tweet, mentioned the name of Bawankule and congratulated all the candidates whose names were announced in the first list. In 2019 election, BJP high command had denied ticket from Kamptee constituency to Bawankule and fielded Tekchand Savarkar. Savarkar had defated Suresh Bhoyar of Congress then.

 

This time, Bawankule will contest from his traditional constituency--Kamptee. He will replace Savarkar as BJP candidate. Gopaldas Agrawal had joined BJP in 2019. So, he was the party candidate from Gondia, but had to taste defeat against Vinod Agrawal, then Independent candidate. Recently, Gopaldas Agrawal rejoined Congress. Hence, Vinod Agrawal is the official candidate of BJP from Gondia this time. Considering the good performance of Sameer Meghe, Krishna Khopde, Bunty Bhangadia, Shweta Mahale, Madan Yerawar and Randhir Savarkar, BJP high command has reposed faith in them and repeated their candidature. Khopde will be contesting the polls from East Nagpur for the fourth time. In 2014, BJP had won 44 seats while in 2019, it had performed poor and could register victory on only 29 seats. In Nagpur district of the 12 constituencies, candidates for five figured in this list. They include Nagpur South, Nagpur South West, East, Kamptee and Hingna. In 2019, BJP had won 7 constituencies. There are some other seats in Maharashtra as well as in Vidarbha where alliance partners have some issues. Of course, unlike what predicted, Mahayuti has more understanding within their constituents than within Mahavikas Aaghadi. 

 

 

Assembly polls in 2019 had witnessed a shocking development as Bharatiya Janata Party had denied ticket to its stalwart leader Chandrashekhar Bawankule. Bawankule had been contesting from Kamptee and remained victorious. In earlier regime, Bawankule was not only the Minister of Energy but was Guardian Minist

er for Nagpur. His performance was considered the best among the few. In 2019, he was replaced by Tekchand Savarkar.

 

Meanwhile, Party had given Bawankule ticket of Member of Legislative Council from Local Self Governnment constituency where he won. Gradually, the party did his rehabilitation by appointing him as State President of the Party. Now, BJP announcing his candidature for Kamptee Assembly constituency was equally surprising but it was welcomed by one and all. Bawankule camp celebrated this development by distributing sweets near his Koradi residence.