The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday released the first list of 125 candidates for Maharashtra assembly elections to be held on October 21. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will contest from Nagpur South West seat; state BJP president Chandrakant Dada Patil is fielded from Kothrud state Minister Pankaja Munde will seek re-election from Parli in Beed.
Among others, Manohar Bhadane has been named from Dhule rural, Shivendra Singh,a descendent of Shivaji Maharaj will contest from Satara.
The BJP’s Central Election Committee meeting held on Sunday approved these names. The meeting was attended by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah, working President JP Nadda, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari among others.
The announcement comes a day after Shiv Sena and BJP formally sealed their alliance, putting days of speculations to rest. They will be fighting the Assembly elections together but the seat-sharing formula was not given out. BJP state chief Patil and senior Shiv Sena leader Subhash Desai signed the statement on Monday night.
The BJP has dropped the names of 12 sitting MLAs while names of 52 MLAs reappeared. The cross-over entrants in BJP too have been adjusted. Prominent among them is the name of Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, the Congress politician who was the leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Assembly but resigned when his son Sujoy Patil contested from BJP ticket in Lok Sabha Elections 2019.
Yesterday, BJP released its first list of 78 candidates for Haryana Assembly Elections.
The Election Commission has fixed October 4 as the last date for filing nomination. Assembly elections will be held in Haryana and Maharashtra in a single phase on October 21. Counting of votes will take place on October 24 and the results will be out on the same day. The five-year term of the Legislative Assemblies of Haryana and Maharashtra expires on November 2 and November 9 respectively.