Congress and Shiv Sena would expose their own alliance partners NCP and BJP when both the parties withdraw their own candidates and support an independent who is in the fray for the post of chairman of the legislative council.
Congress and Shiv Sena would expose their own alliance partners NCP and BJP when both the parties withdraw their own candidates and support an independent who is in the fray for the post of chairman of the legislative council.
Scheduled for Friday, the election to the post is turning out to be interesting since four candidates, including Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar of NCP, Sharad Rannpise of Congress, Dr Neelam Gorhe of Shiv Sena and Shrikant Deshpande, an Independent from the Teachers' constituency have filed nomination papers. Deshpande hails from Amravati.
BJP, which is eyeing the deputy chairman's post with the proxy-help of NCP, has not put up any candidate for this election.
Congress state unit president Ashok Chavan, who flew in from New Delhi, held meeting with Congress leaders like Shivajirao Deshmukh, Manikrao Thakare, Prithviraj Chavan, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil and others. Chavan told mediapersons that his party would withdraw its candidate to support the independent candidate since NCP neither approached Congress seeking support nor did it responded to Congress request of joining hands for getting both the posts of chairman and deputy chairman for NCP and Congress.
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena has also decided to withdraw the candidature of Gorhe to support Deshpande, who is a Shiv Sainik and the deputy chief in Vidarbha region for the Sena. Sources informed dna that when Sena approached Congress for supporting its candidate, the latter, after consultations with its high command in New Delhi, decided not to go with Shiv Sena but to support Deshpande if Sena also withdrew Gorhe from the fray.
This, in fact, is to avoid the embarrassment of openly supporting Sena.
Meanwhile, a BJP leader said that BJP would neither support NCP nor Congress but would have its own deputy chairman after the election is over.
While bringing and winning the no-confidence motion against legislative council chairman Shivajirao Deshmukh (Congress), NCP was able to garner support from BJP. Shiv Sena had abstained from voting. In tomorrow's election, even though it is likely that Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar has an edge, both Congress and Shiv Sena would try their best to bring to the fore the NCP-BJP understanding.
Strength in legislative council
NCP: 28
Congress: 21
BJP: 12
Shiv Sena: 7
PWP: 1
Lok Bharati: 1
RPI: 1
Independents: 7
Total: 78
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