Congress releases first list of candidates for Maharashtra elections, state unit chief Nana Patole to contest from Sakoli

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 24 (ANI): The Congress party on Thursday released the first list of 48 candidates for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections.

The party has fielded state unit Chief, Nana Patole from Sakoli while Praful Vinodrao Gudadhe has been nominated from Nagpur South West and Balasaheb Thorat has been nominated from Sangamner.

Kunal Rohidas Patil is going to contest from Dhule rural while Rajesh Panditrao Ekade is going to contest from Malkapur. Sunil Deshmukh has been nominated from Amaravati whereas Adv. Yashomati Chandrakant Thakur has been given the ticket from Teosa. Leader of Opposition in the outgoing assembly Vijay Wadettiwar will contest from Brahmapuri. Former CM Prithviraj Chavan will contest from Karad South, while the Deshmukh brothers Dhiraj and Amit will contest from Latur Rural and Latur CIty.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance revealed its seat-sharing arrangement for 255 constituencies, assigning 85 seats to each party. The remaining 23 seats in the state Assembly will be allocated based on their respective party candidate lists.

Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole confirmed on Thursday that the Maha Vikas Agadhi (MVA) has reached an agreement on seat sharing for the Maharashtra Assembly elections.

According to him, each alliance partner, namely Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) will be contesting 85 seats each.

Additionally, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut also confirmed that the MVA partners will be contesting 85 seats each.

He added further that the MVA's unity should come before its people and the elections should be held without any hindrance.

"Yesterday a list came on X, that will have to be rectified because there are a lot of corrections in it. It will be done today. We have reached a consensus on the 85 seats for the three parties and the work will be completed in the remaining assembly constituencies by this evening. Our small parties will also have to be given seats. We will discuss that as well," said Sanjay Raut.

Shiv Sena (UBT) has also released its first list of 65 candidates for the elections. The list includes Aaditya Thackeray and Sunil Raut. Aaditya Thackeray will contest from the Worli assembly constituency.

The nomination process for the 288 seats in the assembly has started. The polling for those seats will happen on November 20 with the results to be declared on November 23.

In the 2019 assembly elections in Maharashtra, the BJP won 105 seats, Shiv Sena secured 56, and Congress won 44 seats. (ANI)