Setback for Munde as BJP ditches her for MLC polls

Nagpur: The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) on Wednesday released a list of candidates for the upcoming biennial / Vidhan Parishad elections to the state legislative councils of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Bihar.

BJP has fielded Praveen Darekar, Umar Khapre Prasad Lad, Ram Shinde and Srikant Bharatiya. The party happened to re-nominate Darekar and Lad. Earlier there were speculations that the party may nominate Pankaja Munde for the MLC polls scheduled on June 20.

Munde, however, couldn’t make it to the list. The retiring members include Legislative council chairman Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar, Subhash Desai, Diwakar Raote, LoP Darekar, Vinayak Mete and Sadabhau Khot.

Members of the State Legislative Assembly constitute the electoral college for these polls. The Bjp has 106 MLAs in the 288-member house. It has the strength to comfortably get four of its elected to the Upper House of the Legislature.