In the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections, 14 parliamentary constituencies of Maharashtra will go to vote on April 23. In the fray will be political stalwarts and scions of major political parties as well as rebels.
The 14 seats that go to polls in Maharashtra on April 23 are: Jalgaon, Raver, Jalna, Aurangabad, Raigad, Pune, Baramati, Ahmednagar, Madha, Sangli, Satar, Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, Kolhapur and Hathkanangale.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena alliance will be taking on the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance. Trying to spoil the party for the heavyweight parties will be the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) which is a Dalit-Muslim front that comprises of the Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM) led by Prakash Ambedkar and the Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM).
WATCH| Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Big fights to watch out for in Phase 3 of voting
Read: For full coverage of Lok Sabha elections 2019
When these 14 seats vote on April 23, they will seal the fates of some of the political heavyweights of the state such as the Pawars (in the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency), the Mohite-Patils (in Ahmednagar), and the Rane family (in Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg).
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-Shiv Sena combine had won nine of these 14 seats, while the NCP had managed to win four and the last seat had been won by the Shetkari Swabhimani Sanghatana (SSS).
While the BJP-Shiv Sena combine will be looking to demolish the influence wielded by the NCP leaders in what is known as the sugar belt, the results of the contest shall remain a suspense till the final votes are counted on May 23, considering that the contests in the region are mostly personality-centric.
In the Congress-NCP alliance, in deference to the NCP’s hold in the region, the latter has been given as many as six of 10 seats in Western Maharashtra to contest from, leaving only two for the Congress (Pune and Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg). The remaining two seats have been given to their ally Raju Shetti of the Swabhimani Paksha.
The BJP has held the Jalgaon Lok Sabha seat since 1999. However, this time around, they have dropped their sitting MP AT Nana Patil and has fielded instead its women’s wing president Smita Uday Wagh to go up against the NCPs Gulabrao Deokar.
Read: Jalna has picked BJP candidate since 1996
In Raver, the BJP has fielded Raksha Nikhil Khadse, the daughter-in-law of senior BJP leader Eknath Khadse. Raksha Nikhil Khadse will go up against the Congress’s Ulhas Patil.
In Jalna, which has been a BJP bastion since 1999, the party has fielded its state party chief Raosaheb Danve-Patil against Congress’s Vilas K Autade.
In the Muslim-dominated Aurangabad, Shiv Sena’s Chandrakant Khaire, who is also the sitting MP from here, will be looking for a fifth straight win. This time he will go up against Sena rebel MLA Harshvardhan Jadhav, who is the son-in-law of state BJP president Raosaheb Danve-Patil. Jadhav, along with the Congress’s MLC Subhash Zambad and VBA-AIMIM’s Imtiyaz Jaleel, is likely to dent Khaire’s numbers.
In Raigad, Shiv Sena’s union minister Anant Geete will be attempting a hattrick against former NCP state chief Sunil Tatkare. In 2009, Geete was hailed as a ‘giant killer’ after he defeated the late Congress union minister and former CM AR Antulay.
In Pune, BJP’s Girish Bapat will go up against state Congress general secretary Mohan Joshi.
Baramati, which has been represented by Sharad Pawar for seven terms, will see NCP’s Supriya Sule (Pawar’s daughter) will contest against the BJP’s Kanchan Kaul, making it the only seat in this phase in Maharashtra to witness a direct woman-to-woman contest. The other seat is Mumbai North-Central.
The Congress will be looking to retain Ahmednagar, a constituency that it has held since 1952 and from where the Vikhe-Patil clan has held sway for decades, the contest will be an interesting one especially after Sujay Vikhe Patil, the son of Maharashtra Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil quit the Congress to join the BJP. Sujay Vikhe-Patil will be contesting the election on a BJP ticket against NCP’s Sangram Jagtap.
In Madha, the NCP has opted not to field its strongman Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil or his son Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil. At the same time, the BJP has fielded royal descendent Ranjitsinh Naik-Nimbalkar. Upset over the ticket not being given to him, Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil, the son of Vijaysinh, quit the NCP and joined the BJP recently. Naik-Nimbalkar will be locked in a face-off with NCP’s Sanjay Shinde.
The Sangli Lok Sabha constituency is likely to witness the toughest contest in the state with the late Vasantrao Patil’s grandson Vishal Prakashbapu Patil contesting on an SSS ticket against BJP’s sitting MP Sanjay ‘Kaka’ Patil.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s direct descendent and NCP’s two-time MP Udayanraje P Bhosale will go up against the BJP’s Narendra Annasaheb Patil, a former Shiv Sainik in Satara.