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    Congress in talks with NCP for Gondia bypoll candidate

    Synopsis

    The election was necessitated with the resignation of former Gondia MP Nana Patole who quit the BJP and joined the Congress.

    prafulpatel_bccl
    Patole had emerged as a giant killer in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when he defeated NCP heavyweight Praful Patel from the constituency.
    The Congress and NCP are in talks for the Gondia parliamentary constituency bypoll that would be held on May 28.

    The election was necessitated with the resignation of former Gondia MP Nana Patole who quit the BJP and joined the Congress. Patole had emerged as a giant killer in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when he defeated NCP heavyweight Praful Patel from the constituency.

    Since then, Patel has made known that he is not interested in contesting the bypoll. “I don’t want to contest because it’s just a few months remaining for the parliamentary polls to be held again,” Patel told ET. Congress leaders said even Patole is not keen on contesting the bypoll as he was more interested in the 2019 assembly polls in Maharashtra.

    “If Patole contests and he wins, it becomes a predicament as in 2019 Praful Patel is going to contest from the seat. So then Patole would again have to work for contesting the assembly polls. It’s not easy making a man contest three elections in a span of five years,” said a Congress leader.

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    Maharashtra Congress chief Ashok Chavan declined to name a candidate and said the Congress-NCP combine would fight the polls together.

    “We would fight together, who the candidate would be, would be decided in the next two days,” he said. Another Congress leader claimed Patel might field someone from his family to contest the Gondia bypoll.

    “All I know is that the BJP would lose. We want a BJP mukt (free) Maharashtra and this would begin from here. I don’t think the BJP is going to get any candidates for the bypoll,”said Patole.


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