BJP’s Ram Satpute Faces Tough Battle in Malshiras Amid Mohite Patil Family’s Switch to NCP (SP)
Solapur:
Yesterday, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the date of the election in the state. After that, almost all the parties in the state have begun their preparation to finalise their seat allocation. Amidst this, the Malshiras assembly constituency has once again come to the limelight.
This time, the contest in the Malshiras is expected to be in between the sitting MLA of the Malshiras assembly constituency, Ram Satpute, and his rival in the last election and the expected candidate of the NCP (SP) party, Uttam Jankar. In the previous state assembly election that took place in 2019, Ram Satpute defeated Uttam Jankar of the then-united Nationalist Congress Party by a margin of 2,590 votes.
However, at that time, Satpute, who originally hails from the Beed district, achieved his victory because of the support of the Mohite Patil family. At that time, the Mohite Patil family was in the BJP. However, the political equations have changed in the assembly constituency with Dhairyasheel Mohite Patil, and almost the entire Mohite Patil family has now joined the NCP (SP) party. Therefore, the challenge before Ram Satpute and subsequently before the BJP is uphill in the Malshiras.
Though the exact seat sharing has not yet been finalised in either the Mahayuti or Mahavikas Aghadi coalition, it is expected that these two seats will be contested by the BJP from the Mahayuti and by the NCP (SP) from the Mahavikas Aghadi coalition. Further, looking at the ground reality, there are very few chances that both these parties will look for new candidates apart from Satpute and Jankar in the upcoming election.
Meanwhile, at the time of election campaigning during the Lok Sabha elections, Dhairyasheel Mohite Patil challenged to send the parcel to Beed, hinting at Ram Satpute. Therefore, the once-old rivals, Mohite Patil and Jankar, are collectively preparing to seize the constituency from the BJP, which was for a long time a single-handed bastion of the Mohite Patil family.
