Maha civic polls: Lengths they go to trip rivals

Mumbai: In the tangled political equations at the grassroots level, where alliances and loyalties often blur, several ticket aspirants for the upcoming civic polls in Maharashtra crossed the line.

The desperate ticket seekers and their supporters went to great lengths to trip rivals, even if it meant theft, shoving papers down the throat or digging up past statements.

Their singular focus was the Forms ‘A’ and ‘B’ that are essential documents through which a political party declares a particular nominee as its candidate in polls.

Uddhav Kamble of the Shiv Sena hogged the limelight, but for the wrong reason, after he allegedly tore up and swallowed the AB forms of a rival from his own party in Pune.

When the BJP asked Shilpa Datta Keluskar to return the AB form that was initially issued to her in Mumbai’s Sion area, she did it diligently. However, the official candidate of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance was in for a surprise when she learnt that Keluskar had filed her nomination. The BJP accused her of stealing the form from the party office and filed a police complaint.

In Nashik, chaos and drama marked the last day of filing nominations (December 30). As the deadline for nomination filing closed, BJP activists chased a car carrying the AB forms, said sources. The party workers also tried to gatecrash a bungalow where the distribution of AB forms was underway. Some of them even apparently attempted to snatch away the forms.

Past remarks returned to haunt Pooja More-Jadhav in Pune after her opponents dug up old videos showing her making personal remarks against Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his wife during the Maratha quota agitation. Though she claimed “some other girl” had made the comments, that didn’t stop the BJP from dropping her candidature.

The Chandrapur city BJP chief Subhash Kasangottuwar faced the allegation of replacing a few nominee names in a document signed by their state president Ravindra Chavan. The party moved swiftly and relieved him from his post.

Amid the scramble on the last day for the withdrawal of nominations on January 2, supporters of a candidate locked him inside his house in Nagpur to stop him from taking back his candidature. The withdrawal happened only after senior leaders from their party got involved.

Elections to 29 civic corporations across the state will be held on January 15, and votes will be counted the next day.