Maharashtra assembly elections 2024: Allies borrow candidates from BJP

Former cabinet minister, Rajkumar Badole, was inducted into NCP on Tuesday. Pic/X

You may have the seat and our candidate, too. The BJP is adopting this policy to find a way out for resolving a seat-sharing stalemate. On Tuesday, one of its ex-ministers joined the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party, and the other will join the Shiv Sena (Shinde) on Wednesday to be its official candidate. The constituencies the two exports will contest have gone to the BJP allies. BJP leader and Sindhudurg-Ratnagiri MP, Narayan Rane's son Nilesh, also an ex-MP, will be Shinde Sena's official candidate in Kudal in Sindhudurg district. He will be entering the Sena on Wednesday.

The BJP also gave its former cabinet minister Rajkumar Badole a green signal two formally shift to Ajit Pawar's NCP, which will field him from Morgaon Arjuni in Gondia district. Badole was inducted into NCP on Tuesday. There have been talks of the BJP loaning some candidates to its allies in Mumbai, too.

With the elder son's nomination, Narayan Rane will have his two sons, a sitting MLA, Nitesh (the younger one) and Nilesh (Assembly debutant) fighting the Shiv Sena (UBT). The father had lost Kudal in 2014 as a Congress nominee to the undivided Sena, but Nitesh had won from the neighbouring Kankavali from the Congress. Nilesh lost two successive Lok Sabha polls. The Ranes quit the Congress and formed their party, which was merged later with the BJP.

Narayan Rane was elected as BJP's Rajya Sabha MP and made a Cabinet minister. He won the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 beating Sena (UBT). The arrangement for Nilesh is also a result of the good rapport the father enjoys with CM Eknath Shinde, who had also left the Lok Sabha seat for his former Sena (undivided) colleague. Nilesh's nomination from the Sena will also save the BJP's allegations of nepotism and dynasty politics.

In the case of former social justice minister Badole, Ajit Pawar and his associate Praful Patel are in favour of fielding Badole, a Buddhist, from Arjuni Morgaon because he had lost by less than 1,000 votes to Manohar Chandrikapure, also a Buddhist, of the undivided NCP. Chandrikapure met the rival NCP faction's high command on Tuesday to seek a poll ticket against Badole. In MVA, the Congress has also demanded this constituency.