Not the NCP chief that is, but a party loyalist with the same name; the rejection of the BJP candidate’s nomination leaves the people with four options
Sharad Pawar
Sharad Pawar is contesting in Chandivli. Of course, not the president of NCP, but a party loyalist with the same name.
Sharad Pawar (above) from the NCP is one of the two Maharashtrian candidates
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The rejection of the nomination of BJP candidate Sitaram Tiwari (58), has re-aligned candidatures in the constituency. The people of Chandivli assembly now have four options, two Maharashtrians and two non-Maharashtrians to choose from. Tiwari’s nomination was rejected last Friday, as he did not fulfil the requirements in the nomination form.
The Shiv Sena candidate from Chandivli, Santosh Singh (centre), is one of the two non-Maharashtrian candidates. Pic/Rajesh Waradkar
The Maharashtrians are Pawar from the NCP and Ishwar Tayade from the MNS. The non-Maharashtrians include Santosh Singh of the Shiv Sena and Naseem Khan of the Congress.
Sena leaders seem confident that their move to field a non-Maharashtrian will prove to be lucky. They believe that their north Indian candidate, Santosh Singh, will attract north Indians with the Maharashtrian Sena followers also adding to this.
The seat, which was earlier contested by the Sena when they were in an alliance with the BJP, had a Maharashtrian candidate, but with the BJP’s plan to field a north Indian candidate, even the Sena turned to wooing the north Indians of the constituency.
One of the two Maharashtrian choices that the Chandivli voters have is Sharad Pawar. The NCP seems to have thought that if not the president of the party, at least his name would get a good amount of votes. It seems the former allied partner of the Congress wants to eat into Naseem Khan’s votes with Pawar.
No dummy form
Sources in the BJP claimed that they had a dummy form from another candidate, which they did not fill for Chandivli, which led to them losing their candidature.
The dummy form is a second nomination from the party in case the first candidate gets rejected, so that the party can still contest elections.
This was done by the Congress in the Kurla constituency, where they had three candidates’ names shown against their party on the official website of the Chief Electoral Office. The first choice got to contest.
'A planned move'
A BJP leader who did not want to be identified, said, “Ours was a planned move to attract the north Indians of that area, just like we have a candidate in Kalina, too, against the Congress. But, to our dismay we lost even before we could contest, with the rejection. We had plans for a second nomination, which we feel we should have filed then.”
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