14 February,2024 05:52 PM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Ashok Chavan joined the BJP in presence of DCM Devendra Fadnavis and state BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule. File Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
Ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections 2024, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has picked up Ashok Chavan, Medha Kulkarni and Ajit Gopchade from Maharashtra, the PTI reported on Wednesday.
The BJP on Wednesday announced the list of seven nominees - four for Gujarat and three for Maharashtra.
By nominating former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, ex-MLA Medha Kulkarni and RSS worker Dr Ajit Gopchade for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections from the state, the BJP has tried to perform a balancing act, political observers feel, as per the PTI.
The political observers say that the BJP has tried to do a balancing act by nominating Chavan, who joined the party just a day ago, and by giving a chance to party loyalists to represent it in the Upper House of Parliament.
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Ashok Chavan, who had served as the state chief minister twice earlier, joined the BJP on Tuesday, a day after quitting he quit the Congress. The 65-year-old leader, who spent nearly four decades in the grand old party, hails from Nanded district.
The BJP earlier targeted him time and again for his alleged involvement in the Adarsh Housing Society scam. He had to step down as the CM in 2010 for his involvement in the scam, wherein a high-rise structure was allegedly erected on disputed land without due approvals, as per the PTI.
Medha Kulkarni, a professor, started her political career as a corporator in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). She won her maiden assembly election from Kothrud constituency in Pune in 2014. However, she was denied a ticket by the party in the 2019 state polls to make way for the then MLC and state revenue minister Chandrakant Patil, the news agency reported on Wednesday.
Disgruntled after being denied a ticket, she was later appointed as the vice president of the BJP women's wing.
The third candidate - Dr Gopchade - is a lesser known name.
Gopchade, who hails from Nanded, has been a staunch supporter and worker of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP. He is currently the head of the doctors' cell of the BJP in Maharashtra, the news agency reported.
(with PTI and inputs)
