Maha polls: Prominent names missing from BJP's 1st list; turncoats rewarded

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's first list of 125 candidates for the October 21 Maharashtra Assembly polls includes expected names like Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and state unit president Chandrakant Patil, but high-profile figures Eknath Khadse and Vindo Tawde are missing from it.

Fadnavis, the first BJP chief minister of the state, will seek a consecutive fifth term from Nagpur South West, while Patil, a two-time Maharashtra Legislative Council member, will make his assembly election debut from Kothrud in Pune.

The list has names of 12 women candidates, including seven sitting MLAs.

Kothrud MLA Medha Kulkarni was denied a ticket this time to accommodate Patil, who is also a minister, while in Mulund in Mumbai, sitting MLA Sardar Tara Singh has been replaced by Mihir Kotecha.

Among the notable debutants, Fadnavis's private assistant Abhimanyu Pawar has been fielded from Ausa in Latur district.

Several leaders from the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party who made their way to the BJP in the run-up to the polls have been rewarded and handed election tickets.

These are Harshvardhan Patil (Indapur), Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil (Shirdi), Vaibhav Pichad (Akole), Jaykumar Gore (Man), Madan Bhosale (Wai), Rana Jagjitsinh Patil (Tuljapur), Kalidas Kolambkar (Wadala), Shivendraraje Bhosale (Satara) and Sandeep Naik (Airoli).

The list does not figure the names of Khadse, a former minister and among the party's prominent leaders from the state, and School Education minister Vindo Tawde.

In adjoining Thane district, where the BJP has nine MLAs, it has renominated all but two of them.

The party has renominated its sitting MLAs Mahesh Chowgule (Bhiwandi West), Kisan Kathore (Murbad), Ganpat Gaikwad (Kalyan East), Ravindra Chavan (Dombivili), Narendra Mehta (Mira Bhayander), Sanjay Kelkar (Thane) and Manda Mhatre (Belapur).

Narendra Pawar, the sitting BJP MLA from Kalyan-West, has been denied ticket.

Sandip Naik, who was elected in 2014 from Airoli on an NCP ticket and joined the BJP a few weeks ago, has been fielded by the saffron party from the same seat in Navi Mumbai.

In Palghar district, the party has again given ticket to Paskal Dhanare, the sitting MLA from Dhanau, and fielded Hemant Sawra, son of former minister Vishnu Sawra, from Vikramgadh.