Pune: The Congress city unit on Tuesday interviewed 47 aspirants ahead of upcoming State Assembly poll. Aspirants showed interest in contesting from seven out of the eight constituencies in the city, Khadakwasla being the exception.
Senior corporator Aba Bagul, aspirant for Parvati constituency, former corporator Sadanand Shetty, aspirant for Pune Cantonment and Manish Anand, aspirant for Shivajinagar, showed their strength by arriving at Congress Bhavan flanked by supporters.
Earlier, the party had failed to generate a good response from aspirants for four assembly constituencies.
Following this, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) extended the date of filing forms by eight days after the deadline of July 6. Earlier, only 22 people had filed applications as against 47 now.
Sonal Patel, All India Congress Committee Secretary for Maharashtra, Rajesh Sharma, General Secretary of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee, Ramesh Bagwe, City Unit Chief of Congress Party and Jaywantrao Awale, party observer conducted the interviews of the aspirants.
Congress party leader in PMC Arvind Shinde, Corporator Lata Rajguru, Corporator Ravindra Dhangekar, former corporator Virand Kirad were interviewed for Kasba Peth constituency.
Corporator Avinash Bagwe and former corporator Sadanand Shetty showed interest in Pune Cantonment whereas former MLC Deepti Choudari, former city mayor Dattatraya Gaikawad, senior leader Gopal Tiwari, former corporator Mukari Algude were interviewed for Shivajinagar constituency.
Speaking to Sakal Times, Bagwe said, “We have good response from Kasba and Shivajinagar constituencies.”
Refusing to admit that no one showed interest in contesting from Khadakwasla constituency, Bagwe said, “Khadakwasla is a rural part, so we have not conducted interviews for that constituency.” He said the report will be shared with MPCC.
In the Congress-NCP alliance in 2009, NCP contested the Assembly election from Parvati, Vadgaonsheri, Khadakwasla and Kothrud and won the Vadgaonsheri seat. According to sources, the Congress will not stake claim on these four seats.
In 2014, both parties contested the elections separately and lost all the seats. However, there is no official announcement of an alliance from both parties yet. The Congress is anticipating to form an alliance with the NCP.
