Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2019: Congress fields Ashish Deshmukh against Fadnavis, names 18 more candidates

The Congress has so far announced names of 140 candidates for total 288 assembly seats to be contested. Ashish Deshmukh had defeated his uncle and NCP leader Anil Deshmukh in 2014 while fighting on a BJP ticket.

The Congress has fielded former BJP MLA Ashish Deshmukh to take on Mahrashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis from Nagpur South West seat for the October 21 state assembly polls. Deshmukh’s name figured among the list of 19 candidates released by the national party on Thursday evening.

Deshmukh had rejoined Congress after quitting the BJP in October 2018 over the issue of a separate state for Vidarbha. He has been pitted against Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis (Twitter Photo/@AshishRDeshmukh)

The Congress has so far announced names of 140 candidates for total 288 assembly seats to be contested.

Fadnavis’ challenger, Deshmukh, who is the son of former president of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee Rajneet Deshmukh, had quit the BJP and resigned as Kaatol MLA in October 2018 demanding a separate state of Vidarbha. Deshmukh had also demanded shifting of the Nanar refinery project from Konkan to Vidarbha. Deshmukh returned to Congress after quitting BJP.

Deshmukh had defeated his uncle and sitting NCP MLA Anil Deshmukh in Katol on a BJP ticket in 2014 assembly polls.

In another release later, Congress also cleared another former BJP leader, Shri Nana Patole to fight from Sakoli constituency in Maharashtra.

The party also replaced Mohan Pawan Singh, whose name was announced in the third list, with Udesingh K. Padvi for reserved seat of Nundurbar. It also replaced Prabhakar Manikrao Palodkar with Khaisar Azad for Silod seat.

The counting of votes will be done on October 24.