Chandrakant Sonawane: Hopes To Retain Chopda Seat, Banking On Development Projects (image:instagram.com/mla_latacsonawane/)

Jalgaon, Maharashtra: In the forthcoming Assembly polls, the Shiv Sena (Shinde) faction has fielded former MLA Chandrakant Sonawane from the Chopda assembly segment. He is fielded against Prabhakar Sonawane of the Shiv Sena, led by Uddhav Thackeray.

In the 2014 polls, Sonawane won the Chopda assembly segment as a Shiv Sena candidate. He secured 54,176 votes and defeated Madhuri Patil of the NCP by a margin of 11,935 votes. Aside from being a legislator, he held other significant positions, including Corporator in Jalgaon Municipal Corporation and Director of Jalgaon District Central Co-operative Bank.

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In September 2019, Sonawane was among the 48 convicted in the Jalgaon multi-crore housing scam. He was sentenced to five years in prison and had to pay a fine of Rs 5 lakh.

In the 2019 Assembly polls, Sonawane’s wife Latabai contested and won from the assembly seat. Latabai secured victory with 78,137 votes. She defeated Jagdishchandra Ramesh Valvi of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), who received 57,608 votes. Following the 2022 Sena split, Chandrankant and Latabai stayed with the Shinde faction of the party.

As Chandrakant fights poll this time, he hopes that the developmental works initiated in the constituency will aid in his favour. Their projects involving advancement of infrastructure and educational opportunities such as construction of dams across the Aner river, concreting road from Nimagwan to Vaijapur, and the establishment of an Ashram School in Vaijapur are counted as significant, Oneindia reports. The initiatives undertaken by the Sonawane couple has also extended confidence in Shinde faction’s in presenting Chandrakant as a candidate.

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The Chopda Assembly Constituency is a reserved category seat for the Scheduled Tribe (ST) and is located in Jalgaon district. The 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra will go to polls on November 20 and counting of votes will take place on November 23. The Assembly elections mark first one in the state after Shiv Sena and  NCP split in 2022, and 2023 respectively.