Lok Sabha polls: Sharad Pawar's Nilesh Lanke giving a tough fight to BJP's Sujay Vikhe
Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies in Maharashtra, NCP leader Sharad Pawar seems to have managed to field the toughest candidates against BJP. A case in point is Ahmednagar where former Parner MLA Nilesh Lanke is taking on BJP MP Sujay Vikhe Patil.
When NCP split last year, Lanke had joined the Ajit Pawar faction. However, in the run up to Lok Sabha polls, Sharad Pawar lured him back into his fold and offered him a Lok Sabha ticket. Sujay is son of state minister and Shirdi MLA Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil who was the opposition leader of Congress in 2019 before joining BJP.
The Vikhe Patils are considered pioneers of cooperative movement in the state. Lanke, on the other hand, is known as a 'Covid warrior' who is highly popular in Ahmednagar.
Sharad Pawar has claimed that when the Vikhe Patils came to know about his move to field Lanke, they sent out a message to get Pawar to select any other candidate. While there is no way of confirming Pawar's claim, Ajit has publicly spoken about how he did his best to dissuade Lanke from contesting against Vikhe Patil. Failing to persuade him, Ajit asked Lanke to resign as an MLA or else face disqualification. So confident was Lanke of his victory that he resigned as an MLA before joining the Sharad Pawar faction.
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