On Friday evening, even as Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray were addressing a joint press conference in Mumbai, the saffron alliance was being torn to pieces in Sindhudurg district.
Sindhudurg district has three assembly constituencies—Kankavli, Kudal and Sawantwadi. Of these, Kankavli is contested by BJP while Kudal and Sawantwadi belong to Shiv Sena. The BJP gave Nitesh Rane the ticket to contest elections from Kankavli after he quit Congress and joined the BJP. Many BJP workers were not happy with Rane’s candidature but they accepted the party decision without a murmur of protest.
Shiv Sena, however, did not like that Rane had been given BJP ticket. Ever since Narayan Rane quit Sena in 2005 , Ranes have been staunch opponents of the Sena not just in Sindhudurg’s local politics but also in the state politics. Rane senior, who is a Rajya Sabha member from BJP quota, was keen to enter BJP recently but the party has kept the decision on hold as it does not want to upset Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray. The BJP, however, made sure that Rane’s son Nitesh, who was a Congress legislator, resigned from Congress and joined the saffron party before giving him ticket from Kankavli constituency.
With Rane as BJP candidate, Shiv Sena announced that it was giving ticket to Satish Sawant, once a close aide of Rane who parted ways recently, to contest against Nitesh. This decision by Shiv Sena has not gone down well with Sindhudurg BJP and it has now announced its decision to support two independents who are contesting against Sena candidates in Kudal and Sawantwadi.
“There are 8 assembly seats in Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg district. BJP has got only one among the eight. It is entirely our right whom we decide to give the ticket. If Shiv Sena is going to play petty games against us even on that lone seat then we have no option but to fight against Shiv Sena,” Pramod Jathar, Sindhudurg district president of BJP told THE WEEK.
Jathar was all set to give BJP’s A and B forms to Rajan Teli and Dada Samant who are contesting against Shiv Sena minister Deepak Kesarkar and Vaibhav Naik from Sawantwadi and Kudal respectively.
“Being district president of the BJP, I had the A-B forms and could have given them easily to Rajan Teli and Datta Samant. However, state president Chandrakant Patil told me we should not go against alliance Dharma even if Shiv Sena has done it. Now, if Satish Sawant does not withdraw his candidature, we will be compelled to support Teli and Samant in Sawantwadi and Kudal,” said Jathar.
A senior BJP leader said that Sindhudurg is not the only case where Sena has fielded candidate against the BJP. “They have done it in Mumbai too. Shivaji Nagar-Mankhurd seat came to BJP in the seat sharing. We decided to leave it for Republican Party of India because of strong presence of Dalits in that constituency. But there too Shiv Sena has announced its candidate,” said the BJP leader.
He also said that if Sena does not withdraw in Kankavli, the BJP has enough manpower to sabotage the election of at least one Sena candidate in Kudal or Sawantwadi.
