A battle royal being witnessed between the erstwhile ruling Democratic Front (DF) partners in former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s home constituency of Karad (south) in western Maharashtra turned bitter on Wednesday, as the NCP’s official candidate Rajendra Yadav withdrew his nomination at the last minute and announced his support for Chavan of the rival Congress.
Yadav sprang a nasty surprise on the NCP leadership on the last day of withdrawal of nominations for the October 15 Assembly polls, by opting out of the contest and pledging his support to Chavan.
Within hours after Yadav withdrew his papers, met the former Chief Minister and announced his support to the latter, an embarrassed former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar of the NCP announced his party’s support to the rebel Congress candidate in the fray Vilasrao Patil-Undalkar, a seven time local MlA.
Undalkar has rebelled against the Congress after the party denied him ticket to contest the Assembly polls from Karad (south) constituency in Satara district of western Maharashtra.
Talking to media persons in Mumbai on Wednesday evening, Ajit Pawar said: “Following our candidate’s withdrawal from the fray, we have now decided to support Independent candidate Vilaskaka Undalkar in Karad (south) constituency”.
After the Congress decided to field Chavan in his place, Undalkar had last week resigned from the party along with his supporters last week.
Though Undhalkar was offered a ticket by the Sharad Pawar-led NCP, Undalkar chose to file the nomination as an independent candidate against Chavan from Karad (south). Undalkar had refused to contest on a NCP ticket saying that he is die-hard Congressman would not like to switch to other political for the sake of tickets.
With Yadav withdrawing from the fray, it will be a four-cornered contest in Karad (south) where, apart from Chavan and Undalkar, there are other candidates in the contest, They are Ajinkya Patil, son of senior leader and current Bihar Governor DY Patil of the Shiv Sena and Atul Bhosale, a Congress rebel who switched over to BJP.
Ajinkya, brother of Congress Minister of state for home Satej Patil, joined the Shiv Sena last week and filed his nomination on a Sena ticket from Karad (South) constituency against Chavan.
The BJP is planning to organise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public rally at Karad on September 9.