Shiv Sena field Phatak against Davkhare

The battle for control over the Thane Local Body constituency (LBC) of the state legislative council will be fought between Shiv Sena’s Ravindra Phatak and Nationalist Congress Party’s Vasant Davkhare. Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday officially announced Mr Phatak’s name for the MLC election from Thane LBC. Meanwhile, BJP has indicated that the MLC poll for ten members elected from the elected MLAs (EMLAs) quota will be unopposed as Congress and NCP do not want to indulge in horse trading.

Mr Phatak, who was a strong supporter of former chief minister Narayan Rane, left Sena and joined Congress after Mr Rane. He contested the legislative assembly election in 2009 as a Congress candidate and in 2014, as a Sena candidate, however, was defeated by his opponents in both elections. Mr Phatak joined

the Sena before the 2014 assembly polls on condition of political rehabilitation and was awaiting the MLC election. According to a Sena leader, who did not wish to be named, Mr Thackeray had assured Mr Phatak of a seat in the council after he was defeated in the assembly polls.

Till date, the Congress-NCP-BVA-SP alliance has 438 votes and, according to Mr Davkhare, 20 corporators from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) will cast their votes in his favour. On the other hand, Mr Phatak has claimed that there are 499 members in the Sena-BJP-RPI alliance. On paper, Mr Phatak has 61 more supporters than Mr Davkhare. However, a close aide of Mr Davkhare claimed that he had good relations in the party and there would be chamatkar (magic) at the last moment and Mr Davkhare would win the election by defeating Sena’s Mr Phatak. “There are 74 voters from other small parties, including BSP, CPI and CPI (M) which will never support Sena-BJP and Mr Davkhare can divert them in his own favour,” said Mr Davkhare’s close aide.

Meanwhile, BJP state president Raosaheb Danve said that election for 10 members from the EMLA constituency would be unopposed. “BJP and its alliance will win five seats, Sena will win two and Congress-NCP alliance will win three seats unopposed, if they support us,” he said.

Reacting to Mr Danve’s suggestion, LoP Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil said that Congress would contest two seats instead of one, as suggested by NCP. Congress and NCP would, in combination, win three seats according to the assembly’s strength. Mr Vikhe Patil said that his party would contest two seats if the party high command did not oppose that.