The Communist Party of India (CPI), an ally of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has entered the fray in the Parbhani Lok Sabha constituency but will support the alliance candidates in the remaining 47 constituencies in the state, said a top official on Wednesday.
CPI Mumbai Secretary Milind Ranade said that the party nominee Rajan Kshirsagar, a well-known social-political activist in the region, has filed his nomination paper for Parbhani constituency and launched his poll campaign with a large number of supporters.
The CPI nominee is pitted against the MVA-Shiv Sena (UBT)’s sitting MP Sanjay H. Jadhav, the MahaYuti-Rashtriya Samaj Paksha's Mahadev J. Jankar, and Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) nominee Babasaheb B. Ugale, all vying to capture Parbhani in Marathwada which has a significant chunk of Muslim population.
A CPI activist since his college days, Kshirsagar is best known for his crusade against the Reliance General Insurance Co. Ltd. for failure to pay up farmers’ crop insurance claims and the mega-corporate was finally removed as the nodal agency for Parbhani, said Ranade.
Besides, he organised truck-drivers against the draconian MVA laws and is striving to ensure water supply to all people in the district through the local canal networks, along with his wife and prominent corporate-labour lawyer Madhuri Kshirsagar.
Ranade said that during the seat-sharing talks, the CPI had requested the MVA to allot either Parbhani or Nashik LS seats, but they were denied, so the party decided to field Kshirsagar (Parbhani).
“He will not take back his nomination papers on April 8, nor will he be cowed down by the government, police, ED, CBI or IT… We shall not indulge in mud-slinging on other candidates, but discuss the failures and the anti-people policies of the BJP regimes at the Centre and in the state which are leading the country to ruin,” asserted Ranade.
The MVA constituents have not yet reacted to the move by the CPI – which will continue to support the opposition alliance candidates in all the remaining 47 Lok Sabha constituencies in Maharashtra.
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