Congress expels eight rebel candidates

Maharashtra Congress suspended eight rebel candidates for six years, emphasizing unity among allies to strengthen their electoral strategy.

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Congress on Thursday suspended eight rebel candidates from the party for a period of six years, announced Ramesh Chennithala, Congress’ Maharashtra in charge.

Congress expels eight rebel candidates

“The party does not accept ‘friendly fights’ among Maha Vikas Aghadi allies anywhere in the state. What happened in Sangli during the Lok Sabha (when the Congress rebel candidate Vishal Patil trumped the Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate) will not be repeated,” he added. The eight leaders who have been expelled for contesting as Independents Rajendra Mulak from Ramtek, Jayashree Patil from Sangli, Kamal Vyavhare from Kasba Peth, Purshottam Hazare from Nagpur east, Aba Bagul from Parvati, Shamkant Saner from Sindkheda, Manish Anand from Shivaji Nagar, Pune and Amol Deshmukh from Savner.

At present there are 18 rebels in the fray from the ruling Mahayiti alliance and another 23 rebels from the opposition’s Maha Vikas Aghadi.

But until a couple of weeks ago this number of rebels was much larger and threatened to derail all political calculations. Between October 29 which was the last day of filing nominations and November 4, the last day for withdrawal of nominations, the top brass of the state units of nearly all parties were in furious negotiations trying to get the rebels to back down.

A glimpse of what went on behind the scenes was offered by Congress leaders who drove rebel leader Shamim Ansari’s house at Byculla to persuade him from contesting as an independent candidate. “We went to Ansari’s house, made him speak to Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala and CWC member Naseer Hussain (the latter is attached to the Congress president’s office) and finally Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray also spoke to him,” revealed Umar Kamaal Farooqui who joined the Congress with his father Kamaal ahead of the Maharashtra elections. For the other rebel in Byculla-- Juned Patel—the party took the help of an influential local preacher Sajjad Nomani to persuade him to withdraw his candidature.

“Congress is the largest opposition party in the Maharashtra. Naturally, many party leaders were aspiring for a ticket But in a coalition, the party has to accommodate allies. Our aim is to put up a strong, united fight against the Mahayuti government and win the state. It was important to ensure that in as many seats as possible, we don’t have in-house rebels,” said a central leader of the Congress involved in the election management.

“In some cases, Chennithala had to assure the rebels that they would be rewarded once an MVA government is formed,” said Farooqui.

The Congress central leadership, especially president Mallikarjun Kharge have adopted a zero tolerance approach towards the rebels “The Maharashtra leadership has been asked to take a tough stand to send a wider message to the voters and allies about the party’s intent and also to the party organization,” said a leader close to Kharge.