Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) announced its first list of 38 candidates for the Maharashtra Assembly on Wednesday. Deputy Chief Minister and NCP president Ajit Pawar will contest from the Baramati assembly constituency. Other candidates include Chhagan Bhujbal from Yeola and Dilip Walse Patil from Ambegaon. The party has also nominated Hiraman Khoskar for Igatpuri and Shulbha Khodke for Amravati; both are former Congress MLAs who recently joined the NCP. Khodke was expelled from the Congress on October 12, and Khoskar joined on the night of October 14.
Earlier, Eknath Shinde’s faction of the Shiv Sena released its first list of 45 candidates for the upcoming assembly elections. Eknath Shinde will contest from the Kopri-Pachpakhadi Assembly constituency, with other candidates including Manisha Ravindra Waykar from Jogeshwari (East), Suhas Dwarkanath Kande from Nandgao, Pradip Shivnarayan Jaiswal from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Middle), and Balaji Devidasrao Kalyankar from Nanded North. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde expressed confidence in the Mahayuti alliance’s chances, stating, “This is the first list of candidates for the Maharashtra Assembly election; the second list will follow, and then we will contest the elections, with Mahayuti winning by a large majority.”
The third party in the Mahayuti alliance, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also released its first list, featuring 99 candidates. According to this list, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will contest from Nagpur South West, while state BJP president Chandrashekhar Krishnarao Bawankule will run from the Kamthi seat. As the polling date approaches, both the ruling Mahayuti alliance, which includes the BJP and the Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena, as well as the Ajit Pawar-led NCP and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA)—comprising the UBT faction of Shiv Sena, Sharad Pawar’s NCP, and Congress—are intensifying their preparations.
