With the Nationalist Congress Party’s Satara MP Udyanraje Bhosale having submitted his resignation to the Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla late night on Friday, by-elections to the Satara Lok Sabha constituency along with the forthcoming assembly elections is more or less a certainty.
Bhosale, a descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji, was with the Nationalist Congress Party and had won the elections on two occasions in spite of the Modi wave in the country. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, he had he had defeated Shiv Sena candidate Narendra Patil by 1.27 lakh votes, just four months ago.
On Friday, he quit the NCP and joined the BJP on Saturday in the presence of BJP president Amit Shah and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
With Bhosale’s resignation, the Satara seat will now be open for a by-election. Given that the state assembly elections are slated for next month, the by-elections would be held along with the assembly elections, in all likelihood. Fadnavis and Shah have already clarified that Udayanraje would be their candidate for the Satara Lok Sabha seat.
Voters in Satara Lok Sabha constituency would now need to cast two votes this time and simultaneously chose their MLA and MP.
{{/usCountry}}Voters in Satara Lok Sabha constituency would now need to cast two votes this time and simultaneously chose their MLA and MP.
{{/usCountry}}The Satara seat was with the NCP in its alliance with the Congress. The NCP and the Congress will need to identify their candidate against Udyanraje. Previously, Udyanraje’s cousin, Shivendraraje Bhosale, who was also with the NCP, had quit the party and joined the BJP.