Cong fields Avinash Pande as RS nominee for by-election

Mumbai, June 5 (UNI) The Congress today fielded former party MLA from Nagpur Avinash Pande for the June 15 by-election to the Rajya Sabha necessitated due to the death of sitting BJP MP Pramod Mahajan.

Mr Pande, accompanied by Congress leaders, filed his nomination papers in Vidhan Bhavan at 1100 hrs this morning. Today is the last day for filing nomination.

The 288 member Legislative Assembly forms the electoral college for the election as the one nominated member does not have the right to vote for the Rajya Sabha election.

The NCP, which is the Congress ally in the Maharashtra government as well as the Centre, has decided not to support the Congress for the By-election. Both the State NCP President Arun Gujrathi and Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil have said that their party will not support the Congress in the by-election because the Congress did not heed to its suggestion that it (Congress) should support NCP's fourth candidate for the Legislative Council elections in exchange of the support for the Rajya Sabha By-election.

When asked as to when noted industrialist Rahul Bajaj, who is tipped to be the consensus candidate of BJP-Sena and NCP would file his nomination, NCP General Secretary Gurunath Kulkarni refused to comment stating that the party is not fielding a candidate of its own.

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