Ajit Pawar during campaign roadshows of Nawab Malik and his daughter Sana Malik.
Credit: Special Arrangement
Mumbai: In what is likely to make the BJP uncomfortable, Deputy Chief Minister and NCP President Ajit Pawar on Thursday took part in campaign roadshows of Nawab Malik and his daughter Sana Malik.
Malik is the NCP candidate from Mankhurd-Shivajinagar, while his daughter is the party’s nominee from Anushaktinagar.
The BJP leadership - including Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Maharashtra BJP President Chandrashekhar Bawankule and his Mumbai counterpart Ashish Shelar were against giving ticket to Malik, who has been booked in an alleged case of money laundering and is out on bail by the Supreme Court.
While, Ajit Pawar gave the ticket to Sana from Anushaktinagar earlier represented by Malik, the senior shifted to the neighbouring seat.
Malik is pitted against Samajwadi Party’s sitting MLA and its Maharashtra unit chief Abu Asim Azmi and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena’s Suresh Patil, the official candidate of Maha Yuti. However, the NCP gave AB Forms to Malik enabling him to contest on an NCP ticket.
Sana is pitted against Fahad Ahmed, who left the Samajwadi Party to join Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP). Fahad is married to actor-activist Swara Bhaskar.
“We have given a ticket to Malik…he has not been convicted by any court…there are just allegations against him, no court has found him guilty,” said Ajit Pawar before joining the road show in Mumbai.
Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls will take place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP will be going up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress try to make their mark. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faces a new challenge after Hemant Soren's recent arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP. The Haryana election resulted in a shock loss for Congress, which was looking to galvanize on the Lok Sabha poll performance, while J&K also saw the grand old party eventually stepping away from the cabinet, with Omar Abdullah's JKNC forming government. It remains to be seen if the upcoming polls help BJP cement its position further or provide a fillip to I.N.D.I.A. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.
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