Congress has finally decided to field former Umred MLA Rajendra Mulak for the legislative council
18. However, till filing of the report, his candidature had not been officially
announced. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) named Ashok Mankar, the sitting MLC, as its candidate a couple of days ago.
Mulak was expected to get the Congress ticket for the recent assembly elections from either West Nagpur or Kamptee. However, the senior party leaders sprung a surprise by fielding Anees Ahmed and Sunita Gawande, both of whom lost. The party has now compensated him by giving the ticket for MLC elections.
Congress sources said that there were only two contenders for the party ticket - Mulak and NIT trustee Anant Gharad. The party bosses finally decided to award the ticket to Mulak as he had not rebelled in spite of being denied a ticket. Secondly, Gharad had lost to BJP in the last MLC elections. Moreover, Gharad held the post of trustee in NIT while Mulak was sitting idle.
When contacted on Saturday night, MPCC president Manikrao Thakre said that discussions were going on over four to five names for the state and the list of candidates would be released on Sunday.
The electoral college comprises councillors of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and other municipal councils of the district and zilla parishad and panchayat samiti members. There are total 413 voters. The break up is: NMC - 141, Nagpur zilla parishad - 59, panchayat samitis - 13, Kamptee municipal council (MC) - 31, Kamptee cantonment MC - 7, Ramtek MC - 17, Saoner MC - 17, Khapa MC - 17, Kalmeshwar - 17, Mohpa MC - 17, Umred MC - 24, Katol MC - 21, Narkhed MC - 17 and Mowad MC - 18. However, as two ZP members - Vijay Ghormade and Sudhir Parwe - have resigned after winning assembly elections the effective number of voters is 411.
Mankar had defeated Gharad in a straight fight in the by-poll held in January 2009. The by-poll was precipitated due to resignation of BJP MLC Sagar Meghe, who had resigned when his father Datta Meghe joined the Congress. Earlier, Meghe had defeated Avinash Pande of Congress and Independent Vijay Dangre in a triangular contest.