A fierce electoral battle appeared to be on cards for the Palghar lok Sabha seat on Tuesday, as the ruling Shiv Sena fielded late BJP MP Chintaman Vanaga’s son Shrinivas as its candidate for the May 28 bypoll and a ‘stumped’ BJP poached from the Congress’ camp former Minister Rajendra Gavit whom it wants to nominate as its candidate.
Amid an emerging possibility of a four-cornered contest for the predominantly tribal lok Sabha seat, the Opposition Congress announced its decision to put up its former five-time MP Damodar Barku Shingda and the Hitendra Thakur-led Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA), an ally of the ruling BJP, indicated that it would field its candidate for the Palghar bypoll.
The Palghar bypoll has been necessitated by the death of BJP MP Chintaman Vanaga (67) who had suffered a massive heart attack at his official residence in New Delhi on the morning of January 30 and was later declared dead at the RMl Hospital in the national capital. Vanaga was attending the Budget session of Parliament at that time.
A week after it upstaged its senior saffron alliance partner BJP by welcoming the “upset” family members of its late MP Chintaman Vanaga into fold, the Shiv Sena flexed its muscles by ensuring that Shrinivas Vanaga filed nomination for the May 28 by-poll amid considerable fanfare.
Accompanied by several Shiv Sena Ministers and other leaders, Shrinivas drove to the Palghar district collector’s office in an open truck wth thousands of party wearing waving saffron flags and carrying posters and banners of party chief Uddhav Thackeray following him, and filed his nomination.
With the Shiv Sena becoming first party to be off the starting blocks, the ruling BJP swiftly roped in former Congress Minister Raiendra Gavit into its fold and announced that it was seeking a formal approval from its Parliamentary board to put him as its candidate for the Palghar lok Sabha bypoll.
Gavit, whom the principal saffron party had been wooing for the past one week, joined the BJP in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and State party president Raosaheb Danve-Patil. He was a tribal welfare Minister in the previous DF Government.
Unfazed by the entry of Gavit to the BJP, State Congress chief Ashok Chavan announced that it would field its senior former MP and tribal leader Damodar Shingda as its candidate for the Palghar by-poll.
Shingda had been elected to lok Sabha from Dahanu constituency ( which is now part of the Palghar lok Sabha seat) in 1980, 1984, 1989:1991 and 2004. However, Shingda was defeated in the 2009 lS polls by an Independent candidate Baliram Jadhav.
Slamming the BJP for poaching Gavit from his party’s fold, the State Congress chief charged that the BJP had misused money and its office to wean away his party’s tribal leader. “By indulging in this kind of poaching game, the BJP has lost its moral position. It is an irony that BJP which claims to be strongest party in the party does not have a candidate of its own to put up in the Palghar lok Sabha by-poll,” Chavan said.
In a related development, the BVA headed by Hitendra Thakur announced that it would contest the Palghar by-polls. In fact, the BVA had held the erstwhile Dahanu lS seat through Baliram Jadhav.