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Maha polls: Congress nominates Ramesh Bagwe from Pune Cantonment, Datta Bahirat from Shivajinagar
In the Pune Cantonment assembly constituency, the fight will be between sitting MLA Sunil Kamble of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against Ramesh Bagwe of Congress and in Shivajinagar BJP’s sitting MLA, Siddharth Shirole will lock horns with Bahirat
The Congress, on Sunday, announced its fourth list for the assembly elections and renominated Ramesh Bagwe from Pune Cantonment and Datta Bahirat from Shivajinagar assembly constituencies as their official candidates.
The fourth list has put to rest the speculation over potential new candidates for the assembly seats in both the constituencies. With these candidates, the fight in both constituencies will be similar to the 2019 assembly elections.
In the Pune Cantonment assembly constituency, the fight will be between sitting MLA Sunil Kamble of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against Ramesh Bagwe of Congress and in Shivajinagar BJP’s sitting MLA, Siddharth Shirole will lock horns with Bahirat.
The Pune Cantonment has been considered favourable to Congress for several decades. Bagwe was elected as a member of the state legislature in 2004 and 2009 and was minister of state for home from 2009 to 2010.
In 2014, the BJP changed the trend after defeating Bagwe in the assembly polls initially with Dilip Kamble and later his brother, the current sitting MLA, Sunil Kamble in 2019.
The Shivajinagar constituency had around 12 aspirants including strong ones like Manish Anand and Sunny Nimhan from the Congress to contest the upcoming assembly election. Nimhan, a former BJP corporator and son of ex-MLA Vinayak Nimhan, was keen for a ticket from Shivajinagar.
In the 2019, assembly elections, Congress leader Bahirat lost to BJP’s Siddharth Shirole by a narrow margin of 5,124 votes. This year, Bahirat had voiced his opposition to Nimhan’s entry into the Congress, while firmly reiterating his claim to the ticket.
Shiv Sena fields Shivtare from Purandar
Shiv Sena on Sunday released yet another list in which the party has fielded Vijay Shivtare from Purandar. Shivtare was previously MLA from Purandar between 2014 and 2019. He lost to Sanjay Jagtap in 2019. This time, Shivtare will once again fight polls against Jagtap, whose name Congress has already announced.
