Following In Father's Footsteps: Jitendra Moghe To Contest From Arni (image:facebook.com/Jitendra Shivajirao Moghe)
Jitendra Shivajirao Moghe, son of Congress stalwart Shivajirao Moghe, is contesting his debut election from the Arni assembly constituency.
Shivajirao, a known and committed tribal leader in the party, represented the constituency multiple times. He won from the Arni Kelapur assembly segment in 1980, 1985, 1999, and 2009 on a Congress ticket and as an independent candidate in 1995. He handled ministerial portfolios in Transport and Employment, and Social Justice and OBC Welfare during different periods.
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The party hopes that the influence Shivajirao holds in the region will aid his son’s win. Though historically the constituency voted in favour of Congress, from 2014 it remains as a BJP seat.
In the 2014 Assembly election, BJP’s Raju Todsam won the seat, defeating Congress leader Shivajirao Moghe by a margin of 20,721 votes. In 2019, the BJP retained the seat through Sandeep Dhurve. He won with 81,599 votes, while Congress’s Shivajirao Moghe retreated to the second position with 78,446 votes. Meanwhile, former MLA Todsam contested as an independent candidate for the seat and garnered 26,949 votes.
In the forthcoming polls, the BJP replaced sitting MLA Sandeep Dhurve with Todsam for the Arni assembly seat. After three years, Todsam rejoined the BJP last month.
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Arni is a ST reserve seat. Located in the Yavatmal district, the constituency is part of the Chandrapur Lok Sabha constituency. The 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra will go to polls on November 20 and counting of votes will take place on November 23.
The ruling Mahayuti alliance consists of the BJP, the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led breakaway faction of the Shiv Sena, and the deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The opposition alliance comprise the INDIA bloc’s MVA or the Maha Vikas Aghadi, which has the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), or SS (UBT) led by former CM Uddhav Thackeray, the NCP (SP) faction led by Sharad Pawar and the Congress.
