No Lok Sabha bypoll in Satara along with Maharashtra polls

MUMBAI: Udayan Raje Bhosale received a setback on Saturday with the Election Commission of India (ECI) not announcing the by-election for his Satara Lok Sabha seat along with the state assembly polls. Bhosale, a descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji, joined the BJP on September 14 in New Delhi in the presence of BJP president and Union home minister Amit Shah and had expected that the by-poll would be held simultaneously with the state elections.
Bhosale, elected on an NCP ticket during the parliamentary election sin May, resigned as Lok Sabha MP before joining the BJP.According to a BJP leader, when Bhosale joined the party, his main condition was that if he is not re-elected to the Lok Sabha in the by-election, he should be accommodated in the Rajya Sabha. “It appears that Raje will have to wait longer as no schedule has been declared for the by-election,” he said.
Before he quit the NCP, Raje had a brief meeting with NCP president Sharad Pawar. According to reports, Bhosale told Pawar about how he had been sidelined during the Congress-NCP’s rule in Maharashtra from 1999 to 2014 and proposals submitted by him were thrown into the dustbin. Raje was a minister of state for revenue during the saffron combine’s rule from 1995 to 1999. After he was defeated, he joined the NCP and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004, 2009 and again in 2014.
NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said that Bhosale had quit the NCP for petty political gains. “He was defeated by an NCP nominee in the past, and in the event he contests the by-election, we will put up a strong candidate and ensure his defeat,” Malik said.