Mumbai: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) released its first list of candidates consisting of 38 names. Dy CM and NCP chief Ajit Pawar will be re-contesting from his hometown Baramati. The list includes other prominent names like Chhagan Bhujbal from Yeola, Hasan Mushrif from Kagal, Dhanahjay Munde from Parali, Dilip Walse-Patil from Ambegaon and other sitting MLAs.

The list was announced by the NCP state president Sunil Tatkare on Wednesday. The party has chosen many familiar faces.

Ajit Pawar Finally Decides To Recontest From Baramati

The Baramati in Pune district, the hometown and political bastion of Pawar family, is one of the hottest seats in Maharashtra. After the split in NCP, the politics in Baramati have taken several twists and turns. In Lok Sabha 2024 polls, the NCP had fielded Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar against the sitting MP and her sister-in-law Supriya Sule, the daughter of Sharad Pawar. In the fierce battle, Supriya Sule from NCP Sharad Pawar faction retained the Baramati LS seat.

After Lok Sabha, it is expected that another Pawar v/s Pawar battle will be witnessed in Baramati. It is likely that the NCP Sharad Pawar faction will field Yugendra Pawar from Baramati assembly seat. Yugendra is son of Ajit Pawar’s younger brother, Shrinivas.

Ajit Pawar had expressed his disinterest in recontesting from Baramati, from where he has been elected as MLA eight-times. There was demand from NCP workers to field his son, Jay Pawar in place Ajit Pawar. The Dy CM was also analysing other seats to contest. However, after the official list declared, it is confirmed that the NCP chief will contest from his home seat.

Other Key Leaders

Other key leaders in the NCP’s first list are Chhagan Bhujbal from Yeola in Nashik district, which his hometown and political bastion, and Dhananjay Munde from his hometown Parali, from where he had defeated his sister BJP’s Pankaja Munde in 2019 assembly polls. State president Sunil Tatkare’s daughter Aditi Tatkare has been remoninated from Shrivardhan in Raigad.

Mahayuti Announces Candidates

All Mahayuti partners, BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP have declared their first lists for the state assembly elections. Raj Thackeray’s MNS also declared the list on Tuesday. However, none of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) parties have announced their candidates yet.

Dharashiv: With the elections a mere 28 days away and model code of conduct in effect, the deputy district election officer of Dharashiv (earlier Osmanabad) has gone missing. A case against the concerned officer, Shirish Yadav, for possessing uncounted assets was registered by the Anti-corruption Bureau in Pune on Friday, and since them the officer is absconding, reports say.

unaccounted assets worth Rs 1 crore and 38 lakh were found with Yadav and case was registered against him and his wife. After this incident, Deputy Collector of Land Acquisition Department, Uday Singh Bhosale, has been handed over the additional charge of elections, the report added.

Yadav, who also held the additional charge of Additional Collector of Dharashiv, has informed the office that he is on leave because of which the charge of Additional Collector has been handed over to another officer,

The nomination filing for the assembly election 2024 candidates began from Tuesday, October 22. After the election commission of India on October 15 announced the polling schedule for Maharashtra, the model code of conduct for the ensuing election has come into effect. During the code of conduct, the district collector office staff works as officers on election duty.

The voting for the 288 assemblies for Maharashtra will be held in single phase on November 20 and results will be declared on November 23.

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday suspended the life sentence and granted bail to gangster Chhota Rajan in the 2001 hotelier Jaya Shetty murder case. Rajan was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the case in May this year. Divisional bench of Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice Prithviraj Chavan has given him bail for Rs 1 lakh.

The gangster will continue to remain in jail in connection to other matters against him.

Rajan had filed an appeal in the Bombay High Court against the conviction in the Jaya Shetty murder case. The gangster sought that the sentence be suspended and he be granted bail in the interim.

Who Was Jaya Shetty?

Jaya Shetty was the owner of Golden Crown Hotel at Gamdevi in Mumbai. He was shot dead by two alleged members of Chhota Rajan’s gang on the hotel’s first floor in May 2001.

A probe suggested that Shetty had received extortion calls from Hemant Pujari, a member of the Chhota Rajan gang, and was killed because of his failure to pay the money, PTI report said.

Rajan is already serving a life term for the murder of veteran crime reporter J Dey, and is currently lodged at the Tihar jail in Delhi.