Priya Dutt, Deora, Rawale file nominations

Mumbai (PTI): Congress candidates Priya Dutt and Milind Deora besides Shiv Sena nominee Mohan Rawale were among those who filed their nominations today for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

While Ms. Priya is contesting from Mumbai North-Central seat, Mr. Deora is seeking re-election from Mumbai South Lok Sabha constituency where he is pitted against Mr. Rawale.

Ms. Priya, who filed papers at the Mumbai suburban district collectorate, was accompanied by her husband Owen Roncon, local MLA Baba Siddhique, Mumbai Congress chief Kripashankar Singh and state Social Justice Minister Chandrakant Handore.

Mr. Deora and Mr. Rawale filed their papers at the Collectorate office in South Mumbai.

Mr. Deora was accompanied by HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh, former Maharashtra minister Syed Ahmed and NCP MLA Sachin Ahir.

Confident of his victory, Mr. Rawale said, "I have won the polls five times. I am fully confident that this time also with the blessings of Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray, victory will be mine."

All six constituencies in Mumbai and four in the neighbouring Thane will go to polls in the third phase on April 30.

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Regional

SP to contest more seats in Maharashtra

Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh announced here on Sunday that his party would field candidates in the maximum possible number of seats in Maharashtra, as the seat-sharing talks with the Congress had failed.Earlier, both the parties had failed to arrive at a seat sharing agreement in Uttar Pradesh.

“The Congress formally informed us this [Sunday] morning that it would not be able to part with the Mumbai North-West seat,” Mr. Singh said at a press conference here. “Therefore, I have to announce with a heavy heart that the SP will contest the maximum number of seats in Maharashtra.” The Samajwadi Party had sought the seat for its Maharashtra unit president Abu Asim.

Mr. Singh threatened to field 10 candidates in West Bengal if the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress did not leave one seat to his party. At the same time, his party would not field candidates against Ms. Banerjee and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

“We had asked Congress for just one seat to field our Maharashtra unit president Abu Asim. Had they given us that one seat we would not have contested in other seats as it would only result in division of votes. The Mumbai North-West seat is new and there was no sitting Congress candidate,” he said.

The Congress would be responsible for the division of votes in Maharashtra, Mr. Singh said. However, the SP would not field a candidate against Sunil Dutt’s daughter Priya Dutt “as long as Congress fields no candidate against film star-turned-politician Sanjay Dutt in Lucknow.”

Mr. Singh refused to blame Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar for the present situation. “We have excellent personal and political relations with him,” he said.

He regretted that the Trinamool Congress did not ask the SP before going in for alliances. “When Mamata was taking on the Left in Singur and Nandigram, nobody supported her except the Samajwadi Party. Today they have a unilateral alliance without even asking us,” he said.

Mr. Singh said the SP “antagonised” the Left Front by supporting Ms. Banerjee and holding a joint press conference with her. If the SP fielded candidates in the Left bastion, leaders like Jaya Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt and Bhojpuri actor Manoj Tiwari would campaign for them. “Jayaji is a Bengali, I am half Bengali and Mr. Tiwari is popular among North Indians living in Howrah and Asansol,” he said.

Muslim cleric seeks 'fair share' of Maharashtra's Lok Sabha seats

Mumbai: Upset over an 'unfair share' of seats for the community in Maharashtra in the forthcoming parliamentary elections, Muslim leaders Saturday called for supporting only "deserving Muslim candidates" irrespective of their party affiliations.

Addressing media persons here Saturday evening, All India Ulema Association president Maulana Syed Athar Ali claimed Muslims constitute a significant 18 percent of the total electorate in Maharashtra, while Dalits and other backward castes (OBCs) constitute 68 percent.

Going by the statistics, he said that Muslims would be satisfied only with at least five percent of the total candidates from each of the mainline political parties.

"In contrast, so far, only four Muslim candidates are in the fray - the reluctant Congress cabinet minister A.R. Antulay (Raigad), Samajwadi Party state president Abu Asim Azmi (Mumbai North-West) and Bahujan Samaj Party's Mohammed Ali Shaikh (Mumbai South) and Athar Siddiqui (Mumbai North-West)," said Lok Janashakti Party (LJP)'s state unit chief Shamim A. Hava.

He alleged that the two BSP candidates are of no consequence to the community since "they have entered into a business deal" to secure the nominations, effectively leaving only Antulay and Azmi in the field.

Maulana Athar urged the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to forge an alliance in the state with like-minded secular parties like the Samajwadi Party (SP), the LJP, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the BSP to ensure defeat of the communal forces.

Hava added that in case the Congress-NCP fail to enter into an alliance with the SP, RJD, LJP, BSP in the state, this group would put up candidates in the state's all 48 Lok Sabha constituencies.

"We may not win all the seats, but we can definitely ensure defeat for those who do not take care of the Muslims, Dalits and other backward sections," he said.

The meeting was also attended by representatives of the All India Milli Council, Muslim intellectuals and scholars. (IANS)

Congress to remain senior partner in Maharashtra

NEW DELHI: The Congress will remain the senior partner in Maharashtra as per the seat-sharing arrangement that has been reached after some hard bargaining with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). While the Congress has been allotted 26 seats with the proviso that it accommodate the smaller allies from this quota, the NCP will contest the remaining 22 Lok Sabha constituencies.

Should the Samajwadi Party — which has been lobbying for a seat in Maharashtra — insist on being accommodated, that will have to be from the NCP quota as the Congress is in no mood to concede ground. The NCP, too, is learnt to have more or less decided against giving any seat to the Samajwadi Party after having to settle for 22 seats despite pressing for being the senior partner of the alliance on the premise that it was in a stronger position in the State.

Though the Congress will lead the alliance, the number of seats it will contest has come down since the 2004 elections — it fielded candidates in 27 constituencies while the NCP could do so only in 18 as it had to accommodate its three allies from the party quota of 21 seats. Now this burden is on the Congress and, so, it is trying to convince Ramdas Athawale (Republican Party of India-A) to contest on the party symbol.

Besides the number of seats that each party would contest, another bone of contention has been where either party would field candidates in the wake of the changed contours of constituencies following the delimitation exercise.

A particularly ticklish issue has been identifying a constituency for the NCP in Mumbai, which is spread across six constituencies.

MNS to contest 12 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra

Mumbai, April 6 (IANS) The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has decided to contest 12 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, party chief Raj Thackeray announced here Monday.
Thackeray said the party will field candidates in Nashik, Pune, Aurangabad, Kalyan, Bhiwandi, Thane and all six seats in Mumbai.

Among the candidates are his sister-in-law Shalini Thackeray, who is contesting from Mumbai North-West constituency.

When asked about the remaining 36 seats in the state, he said: “MNS is going alone in the polls and is low on candidates and resources. Hence it was decided to contest only 25 percent of the total 48 seats in the state.”

“We shall announce the party’s agenda and our manifesto by the weekend.”

The MNS chief claimed that the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have entered into a secret electoral pact for the next elections.

According to Thackeray, the Sena has put up “dummy candidates” wherever it is contesting against the NCP, but he did not give specific examples.

Moreover, he said that in Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s videographed speech which was played out at the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena rally Sunday evening, the senior Thackeray did not mention the name of BJP or its prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani

“He (Bal Thackeray) remembered and mentioned my name in the speech, but BJP and Advani were nowhere,” he pointed out.

Thackeray said the MNS is demanding that captured Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Amir alias Kasab should be hanged publicly.

Thackeray said it was strange that the BJP, which is demanding the hanging of Afzal Guru the accused in the 2001 attack on parliament, has nominated well-known lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani to contest from Mumbai North-West constituency.

“Mahesh’s father Ram Jethmalani has been defending Afzal all these years,” Thackeray said.

Big rallies in Maharashtra; Advani, Pawar to campaign

It is a day of big rallies on Saturday in Maharashtra with the likes of Advani, Modi and Pawar addressing crowds.

Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Lal Krishna Advani will campaign in Pandharpur, a Dalit stronghold. The seat has been held by the Republican Party of India and is also home to one Maharashtra's important temples, the Vitthal temple.

From Pandharpur, Advani will go to Sevgaon in Ahmednagar. It's a Congress bastion and has several large sugar mills, run by veteran Congress leader Balasaheb Vikhe Patil.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who is also seen by many as the next BJP candidate in waiting for the country's top job, starts off in Naxal territory Chandrapur. He will then move on to the RSS base of Nagpur. He will be hoping to help the BJP build on its success in Nagpur in the last elections.

Apart from the top leaders of BJP, Maratha strongman, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who is giving many in the Congress sleepless nights over which way he will finally tilt, will be staying close to his constituency Madhe.

Pawar will be campaigning first in Parner and then in Pune, where former Union minister Suresh Kalamadi is the Congress candidate.

Indian general election, 2009

Indian general election, 2009 All 543 seats in the Lok Sabha
April 16, April 22, April 23, April 30, May 7 and May 13, 2009
Leader		Manmohan Singh	Lal Krishna Advani
Party		Congress	BJP
Leader's seat		Assam (Rajya Sabha)	Gandhinagar
Last election		145 seats, 26.7%	138 seats, 22.2%

Partywise Position in Maharashtra-2004

Details of PCs
Total PCs	48
PCs for which Elections are being held	48
PCs for which results are available	48

Electors and Voters
Total Electors	62992047
Polling Stations	62476
Polling %age	54.38

Number of Candidates
National Parties	State Parties	State Parties-Other States	Other Reg. Parties	Independents	Total Contestants
120	22	18	101	151	412

Party	Constituencies
	Contesting	Won
BJP	26	13
BSP	46	0
CPI	1	0
CPM	3	0
INC	26	13
NCP	18	9
SHS	22	12
JD(S)	1	0
MUL	1	0
RLD	2	0
SP	14	0
ABHM	4	0
ABHS	1	0
ABJS	2	0
ARP	7	0
BBM	16	0
BMSM	3	0
GGP	6	0
HEAP	1	0
HJP	4	0
IJP	1	0
JP	2	0
KKJHS	3	0
LRP	8	0
MRRC	1	0
NLP	5	0
NSTP	1	0
PRBP	1	0
PRCP	7	0
PRP	1	0
PWPI	3	0
RPI	1	0
RPI(A)	1	1
RPI(D)	1	0
RSNP	1	0
RSPS	12	0
SVRP	4	0
VJC	1	0
VJP	1	0
VRP	1	0
VVP	1	0
IND	151	0
TOTAL	412	48

1. Nandurbar

I.N.C.	B.J.P.	Ind.	B.S.P.
Manikrao Gavit	Dr. Suhas Natawadkar	xxx	xxx

2. Dhule

I.N.C.	B.J.P.	Ind.	B.S.P.
Amrishbhai Patel	Shri. Prataprao Sonawane	xxx	xxx

3. Jalgaon

N.C.P.	B.J.P.	M.N.S.	B.S.P.
xxx	Shri. A.T. Patil	xxx	xxx

5. Buldhana

N.C.P.	Shiv-Sena	M.N.S.	B.S.P.
xxx	xxx	xxx	xxx

4. Raver

N.C.P	B.J.P.	Ind.	B.S.P.
xxx	Shri Haribhau Jawle	xxx	xxx

6. Akola

I.N.C.	B.J.P.	M.N.S.	B.S.P.
Keshavrao Narayanrao Patil	Shri. Sanjay Dhotre	xxx	xxx