MVA’s prestige at stake as north Kolhapur goes for bypolls on Tuesday

PUNE Over 2

PUNE Over 2.90 lakh voters will be able to cast their franchise on Tuesday during north Kolhapur bypolls where Congress candidate Jayashree Jadhav is locked in a tough fight against Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Satyajit Kadam.

Over 2.90 lakh voters will be able to cast their franchise on Tuesday during north Kolhapur bypolls. (REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE)

The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of sitting Congress MLA Chandrakant Jadhav in December last year.

As many as 357 polling booths are ready for the polls and voting will start at 7am and district administration has made necessary arrangements for it. The counting of votes will be held on April 16.

Maha Vikas Agadhi (MVA) and BJP have both made the Kolhapur North by-election prestigious with most state-level leaders including Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray taking part in the campaign.

Thackeray while addressing the meeting virtually attacked BJP and former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis over Hindutva. Thackeray on Sunday blamed the BJP for the defeat of the Shiv Sena nominee from the Kolhapur North seat in the 2019 assembly polls despite the alliance between the two parties at that time.

Earlier on Saturday, Fadnavis and BJP state unit president Chandrakant Patil targeted Shiv Sena for “abandoning” Hindutva.

During a public rally, Fadnavis said Shiv Sena has become “pseudo-secular” as a worker from that party has printed a calendar in Urdu in which founder Bal Thackeray is addressed as “janab”.

In the 2019 assembly elections, Congress candidate Chandrakant Jadhav defeated then Sena MLA Rajesh Kshirsagar to win the Kolhapur North segment.