Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has met Bharatiya Janata Party MP Girish Bapat, who has been ailing since sometime, in Pune and said the parliamentarian assured that the ruling alliance in the state will win the upcoming bypolls to two Assembly seats in Pune.
Shinde, who was in Pimpri-Chinchwad town here on Saturday, went to meet Bapat, the Lok Sabha member from Pune, and enquired about his health. After the meeting, the CM said, "Girish Bapat is our old friend. I went to his place just to enquire about his health. I am sure he will be back in the next few days. He also assured me that we will win the bypolls in both the constituencies."
The byelections to Pune's Chinchwad and Kasba Peth constituencies, scheduled on February 26, have been necessitated due to the death of sitting BJP MLAs Laxman Jagtap and Mukta Tilak. The Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction and the BJP came to power in the state in June last year after the collapse of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (comprising the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress) government.
The BJP has fielded its candidates in both the Assembly seats in Pune where the bypolls are to be held later this month. The opposition Congress has fielded its candidate from Kasba Peth and the NCP from Chinchwad, despite CM Shinde's appeal for an unopposed contest to honour the political tradition in the state to ensure unopposed bypolls to seats falling vacant due to the death of sitting lawmakers.
