MVA Bets on Navandar in Shiv Sena (UBT) Bastion Parbhani

Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT), Dr. officially announced Vivek Navandar as the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) candidate for the upcoming Parbhani-Hingoli local government constituency in the upcoming Legislative Council (Vidhan Parishad) elections. Navandar’s candidacy holds significance as Parbhani is seen as a Shiv Sena (UBT) stronghold. Parbhani is the only municipal corporation in the state to have a mayor from the Uddhav Thackeray-led party.

In a post on X, Sena (UBT) leader Ambadas Danve said that party chief Uddhav Thackeray has announced the candidacy of Navandar, who heads the party’s Parbhani city unit. The Shiv Sena, led by Eknath Shinde of the ruling Mahayuti alliance, is likely to contest the Parbhani-Hingoli constituency. The party is yet to announce its candidate but some prominent leaders are willing to contest elections from this constituency.

Former MLC Viplav Bajoria and former Minister Arjun Khotkar’s son, who earlier represented this constituency, along with several other leaders of Shinde faction in Parbhani and Hingoli districts, have expressed their desire to contest from Parbhani-Hingoli constituency.

Elections to 16 legislative council seats from Local Self-Government bodies and a bypoll from Nagpur self-government body are scheduled for June 18.

June 1 is the deadline for filing nominations for legislative assembly elections. Review of nominations will be held on June 2, and the deadline for withdrawal is June 4. Votes will be counted on June 22.

The 16 local self-government body constituencies going to polls include Solapur, Ahmednagar, Thane, Jalgaon, Sangli-Satara, Nanded, Yavatmal, Pune, Bhandara-Gondia, Raigad-Ratnagiri-Sindhdurg, Nashik, Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli, Amravati, Osmanabad-Latur-Beed, Parbhani-Hingoli and Aurangabad-Jalna.

Opposition MVA finalizes seat-sharing deal for polls; While Congress contested the highest eight seats out of 17, it was followed by Shiv Sena (UBT) with six seats and NCP (SP) with three seats.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party will contest from Raigad, Jalgaon, Parbhani-Hingoli, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Nanded and Nashik.