By IANS,
Mumbai : With just a day to go before nominations close for the Maharashtra legislative council by-election, the opposition parties Friday remained undecided on their candidate to contest against the Congress’s nominee, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan.
Chavan filed his nomination papers Thursday to contest the May 4 by-poll.
So far, the two main opposition parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena have not finalised their individual or joint candidate.
The leader of opposition in the assembly, the BJP’s Eknath Khadse said that the seat falls in the quota of its ally Shiv Sena, but till now the Sena has not finalised its nominee.
“I have been talking to them since the past few days over this issue. We are in full preparation, as soon as the Shiv Sena announces the name of its candidate,” Khadse told IANS.
Another senior BJP leader said that the “election must not go unchallenged.”
Chavan is not a member of either house of the state legislature, and must get elected by May 11 when the six-month period will end since he was sworn in chief minister Nov 11.
Chavan will contest for the seat vacated by senior party leader Sanjay Dutt last month.
In the 289-member assembly, the Congress has 82 and the Nationalist Congress Party has 62 legislators.