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Maharashtra to seal fate of many young generation candidates
Voters in all 10 Lok Sabha constituencies of western Maharashtra will be exercising their franchise on Thursday.
The second phase of voting in Maharashtra gets underway on Thursday with about 32.5 million eligible voters set to decide the fate of 358 candidates in 19 constituencies spread across western Maharashtra, Marathawada and the Konkan.
Key candidates who are battling it out include Sushilkumar Shinde, the union home minister; controversial former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan (both of the Congress); and the BJP’s senior leader in the state Gopinath Munde.
Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, and Rahul Gandhi, the Congress leader, have campaigned extensively over the past few weeks in the two crucial regions of western Maharashtra and Marathawada.
Voters in all 10 Lok Sabha constituencies of western Maharashtra will be exercising their franchise on Thursday, along with the electorate in six of the eight constituencies in Marathawada, two of the three constituencies in Konkan and one of three constituencies in Nashik region.
The National Democratic Alliance — comprising the BJP, the Shiv Sena and two other junior partners — is hopeful of winning 30 to 36 of the 48 seats in Maharashtra. In 2009, the United Progressive Alliance (which includes the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party) had won 25 seats and the NDA 20.
However, in the 19 seats that go to the polls on Thursday, the UPA had won 10 seats and the NDA just seven.
The fate of many younger generation leaders from all four parties will be sealed after voting. They include Supriya Sule, daughter of NCP leader and union agriculture minister (Baramati); Nilesh Rane, son of former Maharashtra chief minister — who was then with the Shiv Sena - and state Congress minister Narayan Rane (Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg); Vishwjit Kadam, son of senior Congress leader Patangrao Kadam (Pune); and Rajiv Satav, president, All India Youth Congress (Hingoli).
Rane is facing an uphill struggle in Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, with almost the entire NCP cadre in the constituency deciding to oppose him. The Congress-NCP combine is also facing problems in many constituencies in western Maharashtra.
In Nanded in Marathawada, former chief minister Ashok Chavan — who was forced to quit by the Congress high command a few years ago after the surfacing of the Adarsh housing scam - is expected to get through comfortably despite the allegations of corruption leveled against him.
Padamsinh Patil, the sitting MP from Osmanabad, was given the ticket by the NCP despite charges of murder against him. Patil, who is close to Pawar, was arrested by the CBI for his alleged involvement in the murder of a local Congress leader; he is out on bail.
nithin@khaleejtimes.com
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