Pankaja Munde guaranteed a place in the legislature

Senior BJP leader Pankaja Munde is among the partyrsquos five candidates for the forthcoming Legislative Council elections to be held later this monthWith over 200 MLAs Assembly members in the electoral college the ruling combination is expected to win most of the 11 seats Having the maximum strength the BJP has decided to field five contestants The NDA partners Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party had not declared their candidates till Monday eveningThe Congress can win one and spare some votes for others But surprises cannot be ruled out because these elections will have a secret ballot and preferential voting Turning it into a contest will depend on the MVArsquos interest in fielding more candidates and the NDArsquos willingness to take risks Polling will be necessitated if the number of candidates is more than the number of seats availableSena UBT president Uddhav Thackeray had said last week that the MVA would make the contest interesting and spring surprises Thackeray declared his associate Milind Narvekarrsquos candidature even as the party celebrated Anil Parabrsquos victory in the Graduates Constituency on Monday evening Narvekar has contacts in other parties especially in the Shinde SenaOutgoing MLC PWPrsquos Jayant Patil had been winning on the support of other parties It will be interesting to see whether he pulls off yet another termRehab for MundeThe candidature with a guarantee of victory comes as rehabilitation for Munde in the wake of her defeat in the Lok Sabha elections from Beed While working as a senior minister in the Devendra Fadnavis government she lost the 2019 Assembly elections She did not get a candidature in the subsequent MLC or Rajya Sabha elections but later she replaced her twotime MP sister Dr Preetam in the 2024 contest She lost in a close battleMundersquos candidature is also important because she is the partyrsquos OBC face A large section of the OBCs has stood beside the BJP through thick and thin And now insecure because of the Marathasrsquo call for a share in their quota the OBCs have been given representation by way of Munde ahead of the October Assembly pollsDCM Fadnavis said the state unit was very happy to have Munde in the contest ldquoAll of us were very demanding for her Pankajarsquos candidature We are thankful to the central leadership for accepting our demandrdquo he saidExminister and close associate of Fadnavis Parinay Phuke has also been cleared for the House he had represented earlier Early this year Phuke was in the race for BhandaraGondia Lok Sabha candidatureIn another political adjustment the BJP has nominated one more OBC leader Yogesh Tilekar from Hadapsar in Pune where he had lost the 2019 Assembly elections In case the seat goes to NCP Ajit Pawar Tilekar wonrsquot get a ticket A backwardclass representative from neighbouring PimpriChinchwad Amit Gorkhe has also been given an opportunity to contest the pollsAlly gets itFormer minister and farmersrsquo leader Sadabhau Khot has got yet another chance to be in the Upper House of the state legislature He is the BJPrsquos ally that runs an organisation of farmers in western Maharashtra However another ally Mahadev Jankar whose MLC term ends this month will have to wait till the Assembly elections Jankar had fought the Lok Sabha elections from ParbhaniSatav from CongressDr Pradnya Satav will be the Congressrsquos nominee She was elected in a byelection a few years ago and her term will expire later this month She has been repeated by the party because the widow of late Rajeev Satav who was partyrsquos promising MP has moulded herself to play a new role