Mumbai, October 21: The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday, October 20, released the first list of 99 candidates for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly election 2024. The BJP's first list of 99 candidates for the Maharashtra Elections 2024 features 71 sitting MLAs. A majority of the candidates on the BJP's list belong to the other backward class (OBC), Maratha, and Adivasi communities. The Maharashtra Assembly Elections will take place on November 20, nearly a month from now. The counting of votes will be on November 23, and the results of the Maharashtra polls will be declared on the same evening.

Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis is contesting from his home turf in the Nagpur South West seat. State BJP president and Maharashtra Legislative Council member Chandrashekhar Bawankule will return to contest the Kamthi Assembly seat in Maharashtra polls, which he had held for a decade until 2014. Apart from the bigwigs, Sreejaya Chavan, Ashok Chavan’s daughter, is a prominent debutante from Nanded's Bhokar. We at Latestly bring you some of the key BJP candidates and their constituencies for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024. Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024: BJP Releases First List of Candidates for State Polls; Check Full List.

Key BJP Candidates for Maharashtra Elections 2024

Devendra Fadnavis 

Devendra Fadnavis holds the rank of number 1 leader in Maharashtra BJP. Fadnavis will contest from Nagpur South West in the upcoming Maharashtra elections 2024. He was the 18th Chief Minister of Maharashtra from October 31, 2014, to November 12, 2019. He is the only politician to serve both as the CM and the Deputy CM of Maharashtra. Fadnavis has represented the Nagpur South West constituency in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly since 2009. Devendra Fadnavis' political career began in 1992 when he was elected as the Councilor at Nagpur Municipal Corporation and served two consecutive terms. He became the second youngest Mayor in the country.

Chandrashekhar Bawankule 

Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Krishnarao Bawankule will contest from the Kamthi seat. He held the seat until 2014 and is currently a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council. Bawankule was dropped as a BJP candidate despite representing the Kamthi seat from 2004 to 2014. Bawankule started his career in the early nineties when he launched "Chhatrapati Sena" and continued its social work till 1994. Then, he joined the BJP under the leadership of Gopinath Munde and Nitin Gadkari in 1995, becoming Vice President of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, a youth wing of the BJP in Maharashtra 1995. Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024: As Nomination Filing Starts From October 22, MVA and MahaYuti Burn Midnight Oil To Finalise Candidates.

Girish Mahajan

The BJP has fielded Girish Mahajan from Jamner for Maharashtra polls. A troubleshooter for BJP, Mahajan is currently Cabinet Minister for Medical Education, Rural Development & Panchayat Raj Department, Sports and Youth Welfare and was minister of water resources, Medical education and minister for irrigation of Maharashtra state in Fadnavis’s cabinet.

Mahajan’s political career commenced in earnest in the early eighties when he became Taluka President of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (youth wing of the BJP) in Maharashtra. In 1992, Mahajan was elected as a Gram-Panchayat election for Jamner. In 1995 he was elected to the Maharashtra state assembly for the first time.

Sreejaya Chavan

Sreejaya Chavan is making her electoral debut from the Bhokar constituency in Nanded district. She is the daughter of former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan. Sreejaya's father represented the Bhokar assembly seat when he was with the Congress before switching loyalties to the BJP earlier this year.

Yogesh Sagar

A three-term member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, Yogesh Sagar is once again contesting from the Charkop seat in Mumbai. Popular for his social work, Sagar has been awarded the ‘Best MLA Award’ for three consecutive years by the Praja Foundation, as per his Wikipedia bio.

Kalidas Kolambkar

The BJP has repeated Kalidas Kolambkar from his bastion Wadala seat for the November Maharashtra polls. Kolambkar is an eight-term Member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and is gearing up for the ninth. He started his political journey with the Shiv Sena in the nineties and joined the Congress in 2005 before finally settling in the BJP in 2019.

As the term of the 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly concludes in November, the state is set for a fierce electoral showdown. The upcoming election will see a dramatic face-off between two major coalitions: the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and the Maha Yuti Alliance. The MVA coalition, comprising Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena (UBT), the NCP led by Sharad Pawar, and the Congress, will go head-to-head with the Maha Yuti Alliance, which includes the BJP, Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde, and the NCP faction under Ajit Pawar.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 21, 2024 05:23 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).