The Congress now seems to be having second thoughts about fielding Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan in the byelections for the state legislative Assembly. Sources from the Congress said that the party high command is now contemplating getting Mr Chavan elected to the state legislative council, as the party does not have any seat in the CM’s hometown Satara that can be “absolutely safe”.
A senior state Congress leader said, “The CM was initially inclined to contest an Assembly byelection from a constituency in Satara. But after a detailed study of all eight constituencies in Satara, it was found that no constituency is a safe bet. The Congress does not want to face an embarrassment like the one that Shibu Soren faced when he lost a byelection in Jharkhand after becoming the CM of that state.” He added that there is a likelihood that the Congress high command would ask one of the legislative council members to vacate a seat for the CM.
The CM, who was a Rajya Sabha member, will have to get elected to either of the Houses within the next five months.
Earlier, there were indications that the CM would contest the byelection from Man in Satara. The sitting MLA from Man Jaykumar Gore, who had won the election as Independent and later associated with the Congress, has shown readiness to vacate the seat. However, the Congress is worried about the possibility of defeat in a byelection in this constituency.
“Mr Gore had won the election in Man by a very slender margin. As per the seat sharing formula between the Congress and the NCP, the Man seat had gone to the NCP. However, Mr Gore defeated NCP candidate Sadashiv Pol by a margin of a mere 4098 votes. BJP candidate Dr Dilip Yelgaonkar had also polled sizeable votes. The NCP might agree to vacate the seat for the CM in exchange for some other seat in the future, but it cannot be guaranteed that all NCP votes would move to the Congress,” the Congress leader said.