MUMBAI: Jubilation over the new party name and symbol allotted by the Election Commission
turned out to be short-lived for the Shiv Sena camp led by Uddhav Thackeray, as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation refused to accept the resignation of Rutuja Latke, its possible candidate for Andheri-East Assembly bypoll. Rutuja is employed with the BMC.
The election is scheduled to take place on November 3. Rutuja has now approached the Bombay High Court over the issue. The Andheri-East seat was vacated after the demise of Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke. Rutuja is the late leader’s wife.
As per rules, government employees cannot contest elections, and if they wish to do so, they have to resign from their post first. Though Rutuja had submitted her resignation to the BMC, the civic body has said that it will take 30 days to process the request. The deadline for submission of the candidature form for the bypoll is October 14. Rujuta has apparently told the BMC that she is ready to pay one month’s salary to get the waiting period waived off. However, BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal has refused to accept it, saying that things will be done as per the prescribed procedure.
Shiv Sena leader Anil Parab has alleged that Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s group has been pressurising Rujuta to contest the byelections under their party symbol. “Chahal is under pressure not to approve the resignation. The matter was limited to the local ward office where she was working, but now it has unnecessarily been stretched to deprive Rutuja Latke her right to contest the elections.
The Shinde camp is sabotaging her prospects since she did not succumb to their pressure,” Parab said.
Shinde faction may announce candidate
As plan B, Uddhav Thackeray’s camp has asked the local leaders to identify a few more names as possible candidates for the bypolls. Shinde group is also likely to announce their candidate while the BJP’s Murtaj Patel is in the fray as well. However, BJP may withdraw their candidate to pave way for Shinde group’s candidate.