Political opponents BJP, NCP come collectively to struggle MCA polls

From left to proper: Uddhav Thackeray’s PA Milind Narvekar, NCP MLA Jitendra Ahwad and BJP MLA (Mumbai BJP chief) Ashish Shelar after submitting their nomination for MCA’s Apex Council on Monday. (Special association)

On Monday, the ultimate day for submitting nominations for varied posts, BJP’s Mumbai chief Ashish Shelar and NCP chief Sharad Pawar collectively fashioned a bunch to contest the election scheduled for October 20.

Shelar will probably be contesting for the MCA president’s publish whereas Amol Kale is in competition to change into vice-president. The Shelar-Pawar group has extra massive names within the record introduced. Former minister in Maha Vikas Aghadi Jitendra Awhad will probably be contesting for an Apex Council publish whereas former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s private assistant Milind Narvekar too has been roped in from the identical group.

Vihang Sarnaik, son of MLA Pratap Sarnaik and a key member of Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde’s camp, will probably be contesting for the Mumbai Premier League T20 chairman’s publish from the Pawar-Shelar group. Interestingly, Pawar had backed former India batsman Sandeep Patil for the highest publish a couple of weeks in the past and had even given consent to make use of his identify as backing for the group.

However, the veteran politician took a drastic U-turn on Monday to kind a bunch with Shelar. Ajinkya Naik, who has been an Apex Council member earlier than, will probably be contesting for the secretary’s publish from each teams. More than 100 candidates have filed nominations for varied posts within the MCA Apex Council.

“MCA has always thrown surprises. Nobody expected that Pawar and Shelar would come together and form a group to contest the election. Till last night, it looked like both panels would be contesting on individual leaders’ names. But now things have completely changed post these two leaders coming together and forming their own panel,” an MCA candidate mentioned.

The scrutiny of nominations will happen on Tuesday whereas the final date for withdrawal of nomination is October 14.