Congress releases second list of candidates for Maharashtra polls
New Delhi: After parting ways with the NCP, Congress has released its second list of 143 candidates for the October 15 Maharashtra Assembly polls that leaves out senior Congress leader Narayan Rane’s son, Nitesh Rane.
PCC spokesman Sachin Sawant has been nominated from Mangathane in Mumbai while Madan Bhosale, son of former PCC Chief Prataprao Bhosale, has been fielded from Wai in Satara district.
Senior leader Shivajirao Moghe is party's nominee from Arni-ST, Rajendra Mulak from Kamptee and Rohidas Patil from Dhule rural.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and several of his cabinet colleagues had figured in the first list of 118 Congress candidates announced on Wednesday.
Chavan, a member of the state Legislative Council at present, has been nominated from the Karad South seat in his home district of Satara.
Maharashtra has a total of 288 seats and the BJP is contesting most of them after snapping ties with Sharad Pawar's NCP with which the party is sharing power in the state for the past 15 years.
In the last Assembly elections, Congress had contested 174 seats while NCP had put up 114 candidates.
Maharashtra, which has over 8.28 crore voters, has a single-phase poll on October 15 to elect its 13th Assembly.
Saturday is the last date of filing nominations. After scrutiny of papers, the last date for withdrawal of nominations is October 1. Counting of votes will take place on October 19. The current Assembly's term expires on November 8.