BJP voters resent 3 poll candidates

The north Indian vote bank of BJP is disillusioned with candidature of self-proclaimed north Indian community leader, R.N. Singh. Mr Singh, along with NCP import Prasad Lad and MNS import Pravin Darekar, has sparked off rebellion in the state BJP. So much so, some tried to convince state president Raosaheb Danve and the CM against backing Singh on Monday night.

There is widespread resentment within BJP to the candidatures of Mr Darekar, Mr Lad and Mr Singh. A section of the leadership feels that by giving party tickets to the tainted Mr Darekar and party hopper Mr Lad, the leadership has ignored the loyalists’ camp and in the process, dented the party image. Sources argued that the NCP would ensure that its candidates — Ramraje Nimbalkar and Dhananjay Munde — get elected without any hitch, but at the same time, would not want Mr Lad to get elected. Mr Danve refuted reports of rebellion in party ranks but there were reports that north Indians, under the leadership of R.U. Singh, R.D. Yadav and others opposed to Mr Singh’s candidature, held a meeting at the party’s Dadar office. What surprised many was that despite lacking the numbers, BJP fielded seven candidates for the polls when it could have comfortably managed to get five of its candidates elected.

With Tuesday being the last day to file nomination papers for both June 10 elections to 10 state legislative council seats and June 11 elections to six Rajya Sabha seats – BJP, in addition to nominating Sujitsingh Thakur, Sadabhau Khot, Vinayak Mete, Mr Darekar, Mr Singh, and Mr Lad as its six official candidates for the legislative council polls, fielded a seventh, independent candidate i.e. Manoj Kotak. Considering that BJP has a numerical strength of 123 MLAs, and with a quota of 27 votes required to get a candidate elected to the council, BJP will need 12 more votes if it wants to get five of its candidates elected. However, the party cannot hope to get a sixth candidate elected as it would require 27 more votes.