Nagpur: While the major parties like BJP, Congress and Shiv Sena announced list before the nominations, Bahujan Samaj Party has chosen to play smart. Two days after last date of filing nominations, the BSP has finally made its list of candidates for Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) elections public. Even though it had announced that it would contest from all 151 seats, it has failed to find that many candidates and is contesting from about 135 seats only.
The party has denied tickets to four sitting corporators — Murlidhar Meshram, Manisha Ghodeswar, Lalita Patil and Harshala Jaiswal. One sitting corporator Kishor Gajbhiye had joined Congress some weeks ago and has managed to get a ticket. BSP has repeated six corporators — Gautam Patil, Abhishek Shambharkar, Kiran Rodge, Sagar Lokhande, Ajay Dange and Satyabhama Lokhande. It has also given a ticket to Mohammed Jamal, husband of sitting corporator Shabana Parveen. Among the other prominent names are Rina Salve, wife of Shridhar Salve, president of Bheem Sena.
BSP has not fielded any candidate from ward 16. It has fielded only one candidate from several wards including 8, 19, 28, 29, 31 and 32.
For the first time, BSP has been rocked by allegations of bribery. A sitting corporator Murlidhar Meshram and Sanjay, husband of another corporator, Harshala Jaiswal, have openly accused party leaders of demanding money in lieu of a ticket. While Meshram is contesting on a NCP ticket, Sanjay and Harshala are contesting as independents.
