Shiv Sena has released its first list of 45 candidates for the Maharashtra Assembly elections. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will contest from Kopri-Pachpakhadi in Thane. Earlier, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena had also released its list for 45 seats. Shinde has fielded Sadanand Shankar from Mahim seat against Raj Thackeray’s son Amit.
Shiv Sena has again given tickets to almost all the MLAs who supported Shinde when he led the rebellion against then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray in June 2022.
Shinde will contest again from Kopri-Pachpakhadi adjacent to Thane city. The party has fielded Gulabrao Patil, Deepak Kesarkar, Abdul Sattar and Shambhuraj Desai from Jalgaon Rural, Sawantwadi, Sillod and Patan respectively.
Another cabinet member Dada Bhuse will contest from Malegaon Outer assembly constituency in Nashik district. Ministers Uday Samant and Tanaji Sawant have been fielded from Ratnagiri and Paranda respectively. Another prominent leader Sada Sarvankar will contest from Mahim in Mumbai.
The party has also fielded relatives of many MLAs. Kiran Samant, brother of minister Uday Samant, has been given the ticket from Rajapur. Suhas Babar, son of late MLA Anil Babar, will contest from Khanpur in Sangli district.
Manisha Waikar, wife of Ravindra Waikar, Shiv Sena’s Lok Sabha member from Mumbai North-West, has been fielded from Jogeshwari (East), while Abhijeet Adsul, son of Shiv Sena leader and former Union minister Anand Adsul, will contest from Dariyapur in Amravati district.
Vilas Bhumre, son of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) Lok Sabha member Sandipan Bhumre, will contest from Paithan.
With this, Shiv Sena has become the second major political party to release the list of its candidates. Its ally BJP had released the list of 99 candidates last Sunday.
The ruling grand alliance has not yet announced the seat distribution for the elections for the 288-member assembly. This includes BJP, Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party.
