Atul Save Hopes For Third Straight Win In Aurangabad East Constituency (image:instagram.com/atul_save)
As the BJP announced the first list of candidates for the Maharashtra Assembly polls on Sunday, October 25, sitting MLA and Minister Atul Moreshwar Save received the ticket for the third time from Aurangabad East constituency.
Save contested and won the election from the assembly segment in 2014 and 2019. He currently serves as Minister for Co-Operation and Housing in the Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti government.
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In the 2014 election, Save secured 64,528 votes. He defeated All India Majlis-e-ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) candidate Dr Abdul Gaffar Quadri by a margin of 4260 votes. In the 2019 election as well, Save and Quadri contested against each other. Save garnered 93,966 votes in the election and defeated Quadri by a margin of 13,930 votes.
Few days before, Quadri sent resignation as AIMIM’s working president to party chief Asaduddin Owaisi and made serious allegation that AIMIM Maharashtra President, and a former MP and MLA from Aurangabad Imtiaz Jaleel works at the command of Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and have become puppets of BJP leader.
Quadri is planning to contest election in this year as well. He says that he is in talks with the Congress. Meanwhile, a group of Congress aspirants held a meeting and sent a letter requesting the top leadership to abstain from selecting an outsider as a candidate for Aurangabad East. The letter explicitly warned that if ticket has been given to another party member, they will oppose it. By mentioning the name Quadri, they argued that for the past ten years, he has been criticising the party and the Gandhi family, and it is due to him Congress has suffered significant losses in the constituency.
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The 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra will go to polls on November 20. The ruling Mahayuti alliance in the state consists of the BJP, the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde), and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, and the opposition, Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), comprises the Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress, and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).
As election dates are coming closer, the Mahayuti alliance and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) are engaged in intense poll preparations. The Maharashtra Assembly elections mark the first after the Shiv Sena and NCP parties split in June 2022 and July 2023, respectively.
