05 October,2026 02:10 PM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Satish Chavan. Pic/NCP
The Sunetra Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Monday named sitting Maharashtra Legislative Council member Satish Chavan as its candidate for the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Graduates constituency in the upcoming biennial elections to the state legislature's upper house.
NCP state president Sunil Tatkare issued an official letter announcing Chavan's candidature for the constituency, which was earlier known as the Aurangabad Graduates constituency.
Chavan has represented the constituency in the Legislative Council for three consecutive terms since 2008, according to the NCP. His nomination gives the ruling party a candidate with previous experience representing the same electorate.
Chavan has been a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council since 2008 after being elected from the graduates' constituency. The NCP has once again chosen him as it prepares for the upcoming contest.
The constituency is among five seats for which biennial elections are being held to the Maharashtra Legislative Council.
The NCP is part of the ruling Mahayuti alliance along with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
The alliance has worked out a seat-sharing arrangement for the five constituencies going to polls. Under the formula, the BJP will contest three seats, while the NCP and Shiv Sena will contest one seat each.
The alliance, however, has faced differences over the distribution of seats, particularly in the Pune Division Teachers constituency.
The BJP on Sunday announced Kaustubh Muralidhar Gawde as its candidate for the seat, despite the Shinde-led Shiv Sena also expressing interest in contesting from the constituency.
Shiv Sena's Mangesh Chivte is also seeking the party's nomination and is expected to file his nomination papers, creating a potential contest between two parties that are otherwise alliance partners in the state government.
The development has exposed differences within the Mahayuti over candidate selection ahead of the Council elections.
The biennial elections are being held for five seats representing graduates and teachers constituencies across Maharashtra.
The seats going to polls are Pune Division Graduates, Nagpur Division Graduates, Pune Division Teachers, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Graduates and Amravati Teachers.
These constituencies are part of the special electorate system used for certain Legislative Council seats, with graduates and teachers registered as eligible voters depending on the constituency.
Polling for all five constituencies is scheduled to take place on October 23, while counting of votes will be held on October 27.
The contests are expected to be closely watched because the results will test the strength of the ruling alliance and opposition parties in constituencies with specialised electorates.
For the NCP, Chavan's nomination provides continuity in the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Graduates constituency, where he has represented the electorate for three terms.
The announcement also comes as the three Mahayuti partners work to finalise their respective campaigns and nominations in the five constituencies.
Tatkare's formal announcement clears the way for Chavan to seek another term from the graduates' constituency.
The NCP's decision comes against the backdrop of the alliance's 3:1:1 arrangement, under which the BJP has been allocated three constituencies and the NCP and Shiv Sena one each.
While the seat-sharing formula was intended to avoid three-way contests between alliance partners, the dispute over the Pune Division Teachers seat has raised questions about whether the arrangement will hold uniformly across all five constituencies.
(With inputs from PTI)
