Pune: Although there are three political parties viz. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which have fielded their candidates from the Shivajinagar Assembly segment, it appears to be a direct fight between BJP’s Siddharth Shirole and Congress’ Dattatraya Bahirat. 

It seems that MNS is not in a strong position here.

BJP’s new face is Siddharth Shirole, a young engineer. The party did not retain the sitting MLA and senior leader Vijay Kale. BJP has a strong network and influence in the constituency. This is a traditional BJP segment. Before the announcement of the candidate, there was bickering in the party over getting tickets to contest the elections.

As compared to other segments, Shivajinagar had the highest number of candidates contesting for polls. A senior leader from the BJP used all his influence to get the ticket for his personal secretary. However, Siddharth Shirole being a trusted member of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ young brigade was preferred.

In 2017 civic polls, BJP won in all 12 Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) wards from the Shivajinagar constituency. However, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) failed to get a single corporator from the constituency. NCP candidates were second runner-up during the civic polls. So, NCP wanted to fight from the assembly seat. However, Congress got the seat, which caused disappointment among local NCP workers.

Congress has fielded Dattatraya Bahirat. The party did not get the lead in the recent Lok Sabha polls in the Shivajinagar constituency. Hence, it is a challenge for Congress in the assembly polls. MNS has fielded Suhas Nimhan. However, MNS’ influence is diminishing, which is not a positive sign for Nimhan.