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Close fight on cards between BJP-Shinde camp, MVA at SPPU senate polls
As 31 candidates have withdrawn their nominations, the stage is set for a contest among 37 aspirants for the Savitribai Phule Pune University’s (SPPU) management council polls
As 31 candidates have withdrawn their nominations, the stage is set for a contest among 37 aspirants for the Savitribai Phule Pune University’s (SPPU) management council polls. The elections will be held on November 20 and the results will be declared on November 22.
During the polls, a close fight is on cards between representatives of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
The MVA-led panel include candidates from the Yuvasena supported by Aaditya Thackeray and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), another panel Vidyapeeth Vikas Manch is of the existing senate members, backed by the BJP.
As per the information shared by SPPU, for the ten posts of senate members a total of 88,000 graduate voters have registered. The elections will be held for five posts in the general category and four posts are for different reserved categories. Whereas one will be reserved for a woman candidate.
The elections will be held amongst its affiliated colleges in three districts - Pune, Ahmednagar and Nashik. The three voting centres for elections will be SPPU campus (Pune district), Sarda College (Ahmednagar district) and HPY College (Nashik).
A tough fight will be witnessed in the open category for the senate polls, as for the five posts, 18 candidates are in the ring contesting against each other. The last elections in 2017 saw a major contest between Pragati and Ekta panels.
This year, Vidyapeeth Vikas Manch panel have fielded Devendra Fadnavis’ cousin Prasenjit Fadnavis, Bageshri Manthalkar, Santosh Dhore, Dadabhau Shinalkar, Rahul Pakhare, Ganpati Nangare, Yuvraj Narvade, Sachin Gorde Patil, Vijay Sonawane and Sagar Vaidya.
“Our strength is that we all are organised and I am confident that all the 10 seats will be won by our panel in upcoming election,” said Prasenjit, who won the senate polls in 2017.
The MVA government panel is led and supported by MLA Kailas Patil from Osmanabad Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and NCP Pune city president, Prashant Jagtap is responsible for campaigning. The candidates in the panel are Sanjay Yadav, Akash Zambare, Barerao Baste, Somnath Lohar, Narayan Chapke, Mahendra Pathare, Tabassum Inamdar, Ajinkya Palkar, Sandeep Shinde and Vishwanath Padwi.
“There are several youths in our panel and I am sure that we will win the elections,” said Patil.
“All our MLAs, MPs and volunteers of both NCP and Shiv Sena will support candidates in Pune, Nashik and Ahmednagar districts,” said Jagtap
Lohar, NCP students wing state secretary, said, “We have young members in our panel and we understand students’ issues. We will reach out to voters and we are confident of winning the polls.”
