Lok Sabha elections 2024: First phase Maha-battle lines drawn ahead of poll

Congress supporters celebrating. File pic

Maharashtra's first round battles for the 2024 Lok Sabha election have been set rolling. Over the Holi weekend, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced three remaining candidates in eastern Vidarbha, while its close rival, the Congress, came out with all five, making it a straight fight between them in four places. In one seat, the Congress will contest against the BJP's ally, Shiv Sena.

Contest in Nagpur

The first phase of voting on April 19 will decide the fate of the Modi government's high-profile surface transport minister, Nitin Gadkari. The minister has won the last two elections with a thumping majority. This time around, he faces Nagpur's sitting MLA, Vikas Thakre. The first-time Congress MLA was reluctant to be in the contest considering a strong opponent but landed the candidacy because state Congress president Nana Patole backed out. Gadkari had beaten Patole here in 2019.

It is unlikely that the Congress will have it easy in Nagpur where Gadkari is immensely popular for his all-inclusive nature and massive body of infrastructure projects. His supporters even ran a campaign to elect him unopposed, appealing to the Opposition parties to not field candidates against him. However, no party in the Opposition has taken the appeal seriously.

BJP supporters celebrating. File pic

The Congress had no reason to stay away, because, in 2019, it had polled 37.5 per cent votes, a jump of 10 per cent from 2014. The BJP's 55.67 per cent votes were still much higher to be beaten and nearly two per cent more than the party's 2014 count. Thakre's unique selling point is that he had dented the BJP's stronghold of Nagpur West in the Assembly elections. He is the party's local unit president.

Congress relies on sympathy

Yet another senior BJP leader, state forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, will meet the challenge thrown by the widow of the Congress MP, Pratibha Dhanorkar, in Chandrapur. The Warora MLA's husband and MP Suresh Dhanorkar died last May, but like the Pune constituency, the by-election wasn't held here, either. The late Suresh was the Congress's only Lok Sabha MP from Maharashtra. The Congress and the Dhanorkar family are relying on the sympathy factor in view of the sitting MP's death.

Despite her husband being the party's saving grace, the widow did not get the ticket easily. She had to beat some tough competition posed by the Opposition leader Vijay Wadettiwar, who lobbied hard for his daughter Shivani. Party insiders said the Dhanorkar-Wadettiwar feud was expected to stay and likely to mar the party's prospects. Upon getting the ticket, Pratibha chose to ignore Wadettiwar even as she thanked all other senior party leaders. The short shrift surely gave Wadettiwar some heartburn.

The Ramtek rumble

In Ramtek (reserved for the scheduled castes), where the great poet Kalidasa is believed to have composed his epic poem Meghdootam, the Congress faces disenchantment from the other aspirants against an official nominee Rashmi Barve. Former IAS officer and the party's defeated candidate of 2019, Kishor Gajbhiye, said Barve's caste certificate validity was expected to be rejected by the election officers responsible for scrutinising the nomination forms.

Barve will take on Shinde Sena's Raju Parve, who was favoured over a sitting MP Krupal Tumane. Parve was elected as a Congress MLA from Umred, but he quit a couple of days ago to shift his loyalty to CM Eknath Shinde. Barve's name was cleared by the party after she was given relief by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court while hearing a petition regarding an inquiry into the charge that the former Nagpur Zilla Parishad president had forged her caste certificate.

Gajbhiye informed reporters on Monday that he had sought permission from Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to file his nomination. "My nomination will serve as a dummy for the party's candidate number one [Barve]. I will be the second candidate who will become the official one after Barve's nomination is rejected," he said, adding that his assessment was based on the experience he had gained while working as the district collector (and the election officer) who knew the nomination scrutiny process.

Repeat in Gadchiroli?

In the tribal-specific constituency of Gadchiroli-Chimur, the BJP has retained its two-time sitting MP Ashok Nete. The Congress has fielded Dr Namdeo Kirsan. Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, which took over one lakh votes last time here, has not declared its candidate yet.

The Maoist-hit segment had upset the Congress in 2014 for the first time in decades and returned the ruling party twice thereafter. The confident BJP put Nete in the fight again because it sees a winner in its development agenda. The NCP-Ajit Pawar had also demanded the seat but the big brother stayed put.

BJP expects Patel's chunk

The Bhandara-Gondia segment hogged the limelight because it had a big name like NCP's Praful Patel, who wields considerable influence here. Patel's supporters expected him to get the constituency from the BJP. But Patel never seemed in that frame of mind as he took a safer Rajya Sabha route two months before the Lok Sabha polls. BJP expects Patel's chunk of votes to fatten its winning margin.

BJP's sitting MP Sunil Mendhe will be up against Congress's Dr Prashant Padole. Last time, Mendhe had beaten undivided NCP's Nana Panchbudhe by nearly two lakh votes. Mendhe, a Gadkari loyalist and a staunch RSS worker, was considered to be in the danger zone because former state minister Parinay Fuke had thrown his hat into the ring but didn't succeed.

April 19
Day first phase of voting will begin