With four more candidates, Congress to contest 103 seats in Maharashtra polls

Mumbai, Oct 28 (IANS) The Congress has named four more candidates to contest the November 20 Maharashtra Assembly elections on late Monday night.

With this, the party will fight in 103 Assembly segments, the highest among the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) - INDIA Bloc alliance.

The Congress nominees are Heera Devasia (Colaba) in Mumbai, who will lock horns with the formidable Speaker in the outgoing Assembly, Rahul Narwekar of Bharatiya Janata Party.

The party's other candidates are Sajid Khan Mannan Khan (Akola West), Chetan Narote (Solapur City Central)- Chetan Narote, Madhurimaraje Malojiraje Chhatrapati (Kolhapur North) - who has replaced Rajesh B. Latkar.

Among the other MVA allies, the Nationalist Congress Party(SO) is contesting around 80 seats, the Shiv Sena (UBT) nearly 90, and the rest have been allotted to the smaller partners.

However, a senior MVA leader said that some last-minute changes are not entirely ruled out ahead of the deadline for filing nomination forms with the Election Commission of India, which is October 29.

Meanwhile, a majority of the MVA's candidates have already filed their nomination papers in one week, as well as the nominees of the ruling MahaYuti partners like BJP, Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party.

The final picture shall be clear on November 24 which is the last date for withdrawal of nominations, for the November 20 elections, and the results shall be announced on November 23.

--IANS

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