Ahead of the assembly elections in Maharashtra, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday released its second list of 22 candidates. Earlier, the saffron party had announced the names of 99 candidates in its first list. In the 2019 assembly elections, BJP won 105 seats, Shiv Sena won 56 seats and Congress won 44 seats. In 2014, BJP had won 122 seats, Shiv Sena had won 63 seats and Congress had won 42 seats. After the release of BJP’s second list, the speculations regarding Nashik Central seat have come to an end. The party has again given ticket to its sitting MLA Devyani Farande.
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The list includes seven sitting MLAs. Prakash Bharsakale (Akot), Devyani Farande (Nashik Central), Kumar Ayalani (Ulhasnagar), Ravindra Patil (Pen), Bhimrao Tapkir (Khadakwasla), Sunil Kamble (Pune Cantonment), and Samadhan Autade (Pandharpur) are present in it. With this, BJP has declared the names of candidates for a total of 121 seats after 99 seats in its preliminary list. The grand alliance, comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) and Ajit Pawar-led NCP, is yet to finalize the details of seat sharing.
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Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule this morning said discussions were still going on among the three allies on the allocation of the remaining seven to eight seats for the state assembly elections to be held next month. Of the three grand alliance partners, BJP and Ajit Pawar’s NCP have released two lists of candidates each, while Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena has so far released one list. Meanwhile, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has finalized its seat-sharing arrangements for 255 constituencies, leaving 85 seats each for the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (Sharad Pawar faction). The remaining 23 seats will be decided on the basis of the candidate list of each party.