Pune: The votes won by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) will help Congress party in Pune Lok Sabha elections. In the 2017 Lok Sabha elections, AAP and MNS got 2.89 per cent and 9.41 per cent votes respectively. MNS has taken a decision to campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah while AAP has a soft corner for Congress party.
In 2014, BJP candidate Anil Shirole won the Pune Lok Sabha seat defeating Congress candidate Vishwajeet Kadam by 3.15 lakh votes. Two other parties had won a substantial share of votes in Pune Lok Sabha constituency. One was AAP candidate Subhash Ware and the other MNS candidate Deepak Paigude. Paigude got 93,502 votes (9.4 per cent) whereas Ware was in fourth place with 28,657 votes (2.89 per cent).
Recently, MNS has been working closely with Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) party, and MNS chief Raj Thackeray has also decided to not contest Lok Sabha election and that he will campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.
While speaking to Sakal Times, Anil Shidore, State General Secretary of MNS and in-charge of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, said, “We have decided to vote against BJP. We have started working on that. We are focusing on State Assembly elections 2019, as we are not going to contest Lok Sabha elections. We have taken a stand against BJP. It may help Congress party candidate. However, we have not appealed to party workers or our voters to vote for particular party or candidate.”
AAP city President Mukund Kiradat said, “AAP is concentrating on Delhi, Haryana and Punjab. Talks are going on for an alliance with Congress. But, nothing has happened yet. However, we have declared seven Lok Sabha candidates in Delhi. There is no decision on Pune Lok Sabha seat till date. However, we are against BJP due to their anti-constitutional working style. For Pune BJP candidate, High Court has passed strictures against Bapat in one of the corruption cases. Congress hasn’t declared their candidate yet. It will depend on the candidate of Congress and other parties except for BJP.”
