NCP first list names 5 nominees for Beed

MUMBAI: Even as the BJP and Shiv Sena are struggling to form an alliance owing to lack of consensus over seat sharing, the Congress and NCP have not only finalized the seat-sharing formula for the 288 assembly seats, but the NCP also declared its first list of five candidates.
While the Congress will declare its first list of 50 candidates on Friday, state Congress president Balasaheb Thorat said they will put up a 'surprise candidate' against chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in Nagpur.
NCP president Sharad Pawar on Wednesday announced the five party nominees for Beed-leader of opposition Dhananjay Munde from Parli, Sandeep Kshirsgar from Beed, Namita Mundhada from Kej, Prakash Solanke from Majalgaon and Vijaysinh Pandit from Gevrai.
Munde had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 assembly elections from Parli against his political rival and cousin Pankaja Munde, minister for women and child welfare; she had defeated him by 25,000 votes.
Sandeep Kshirsagar is the nephew of employment guarantee minister Jaidutta Kshirsagar, who recently quit the NCP and joined the Sena. A month ago, Sandeep had launched a frontal attack against his uncle, saying that he had struck a deal with the Sena leadership to gain entry in the party. Solanke is a former minister of state for revenue, while Pandit is the son of NCP leader Amarsinh Pandit.
Thorat said the central screening committee has completed the entire exercise and a final list will be placed before the central election committee headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi. "We are in the process of releasing the first list on Friday,'' Thorat told TOI.
He said there was a proposal to field former CM Prithviraj Chavan to contest the Lok Sabha by-election from Satara against Udayan Raje Bhosale, who quit the NCP and joined the BJP, but Chavan has expressed his inability. "The Satara seat is held by the NCP, which has agreed to leave the seat for the Congress if Chavan agrees to contest. The NCP will have to look for a new candidate to contest against Bhosale,'' Thorat said.
As per the seat-sharing formula, out of 288 seats, Congress and NCP will contest 125 seats each and the remaining 38 seats will be given to 'like-minded' parties. "We expect that both the parties will release the list of nominees by September 22-23. A joint campaign of senior Congress and NCP leaders has been planned to dislodge the BJP-Shiv Sena government,'' a senior Congress leader said.