BJP retains 71 sitting MLAs in first list

Mumbai : The BJP has retained 71 sitting MLAs in the first list of 99 candidates for the forthcoming Maharashtra assembly polls and also fielded some regional satraps including Congress-turned-BJP politician Ashok Chavan's daughter. Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, state BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar, ministers Girish Mahajan, Sudhir Mungantiwar, and Chandrakant Patil, are among the prominent faces feature in the first list released on Sunday.

The list includes 13 women candidates. The saffron party has retained 71 MLAs and dropped three. Fadnavis is renominated from home turf Nagpur South West, Narwekar from Colaba in south Mumbai, and Ministers Sudhir Mungantiwar, Girish Mahajan, and Chandrakant Patil from Ballarpur, Jamner, and Kothrud constituencies, respectively. Mungantiwar had unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha election from Chnadrapur constituency which he lost to his nearest Congress rival. Out of 16 MLAs of BJP in Mumbai, the party has renominated 14 in the first list.

The list also includes Mumbai BJP president Ashish Shelar, fielded from the Vandre West seat, and senior party leader and Lok Sabha member Narayan Rane's son Nitesh Rane, from Kankavli constituency in coastal Sindhudurg. Notably, Bawankule, a minister in the erstwhile Devendra Fadnavis-led government, was denied a ticket in the 2019 elections from the Kamthi constituency he had represented for three terms. He has been renominated from Kamthi. The BJP has replaced the sitting MLAs from Chinchwad in Pune district, Kalyan East in Thane district, and Srigonda in Ahilyanagar district.