Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India]: Bharatiya Janata Party’s Maharashtra president Chandrashekhar Bawankule hit out at NCP (Ajit Pawar) candidate Nawab Malik who filed his nomination from Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar.
“Nawab Malik should accept our wishes on his candidature from NCP. We are firm on our view about Nawab Malik which Devendra ji had said initially.”
BJP has opposed the nomination of Nawab Malik as an NCP (Ajit Pawar) candidate, with BJP leader Kirit Somaiya calling him a terrorist.
“Nawab Malik is a terrorist who tried to break India into pieces. He is Dawood’s agent and Ajit Pawar’s NCP has betrayed the country by giving ticket to Nawab Malik,” said Somaiya.
Nawab Malik will now be up against the Yuti’s official candidate Shiv Sena’s Suresh ‘Bullet’ Patil with Samajwadi Party candidate and sitting MLA Abu Azmi the other heavyweight in the fight.
Regarding the rebel workers who have filed their nomination as an independent, Bawankule said the party would convince the rebels to step down
“Some workers are not happy with the tickets given and that is why they have filed nominations. Our all leaders will take step forward and try to convince rebels. We are hopeful that 99% of all these can be pacified and they will take their nominations back by November 4,” he said.
When asked about the allegations of corruption against Ajit Pawar, Bawankule refused to discuss the matter and said that the opposition is simply trying to avoid the real issues by levelling these allegations.
“I don’t want to go into all this now. We are attempting to 14 crore people of Maharashtra and making Maharashtra number one. No case is pending against Ajit Pawar. It is not fair against him yet so there is no point on giving any clarification for him. Just to avoid the real issues in these elections they are making these allegations,” he added.
The BJP state Chief also hit out at the Congress on Wednesday, claiming that the party has “ditched the Muslim community” ahead of the state’s assembly elections.
Bawankule said that the party is trying to bring the Muslim community with them, with their local level leaders getting a chance to contest on party’s tickets.
“Congress is the party which does Muslim vote bank party and they ditched them always. We are trying to bring Muslim community with us and we will prepare our assembly level workers those who can contest on BJP tickets,” he said.
The BJP is in alliance with NCP (Ajit Pawar), and Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde), called the Mahayuti alliance. The other major alliance for the state’s assembly election is the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), comprising of Congress, Sharad Pawar-led NCP, and Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena.
The Maharashtra Assembly elections are scheduled for November 20, with counting for all 288 constituencies set for November 23.