Pawar screens ticket aspirants for Assembly poll

Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar today chaired the Parliamentary Board meeting in Maharashtra to scrutinise applications from aspiring candidates for the October 13 Assembly elections.

Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, State unit president R R Patil, senior leaders Govindrao Adik and Arun Gujarathi were present at the day-long closed-door meeting held at the party office in South Mumbai.

He also interacted with district unit chiefs and prominent local leaders to assess the political situation in the region and the prospects of the aspirants in the given constituencies, party spokesman Madan Bafna told reporters.

Bafna said the deliberations centred around the newly created constituencies and the sitting MLAs whose assembly seats have been bifurcated or vanished from the political map.

The interviews of 3,066 aspirants have already been conducted at the district level. Bafna said Marathwada and Vidarbha were taken up for discussion today which will be followed by Western and North Maharashtra, Konkan, Thane and Mumbai tomorrow.

He said in the Lok Sabha elections, the party retained its vote percentage even though the number of seats had reduced.

“We are still hopeful of an alliance. Congress is talking about going alone, not we,” he said.