Satara LS seat sees conflict among Mahayuti allies as BJP's Udayanraje Sena’s Jadhav keen to fight

Mumbai, Mar 20 (PTI) The Satara Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra may become a point of friction for the state's ruling Mahayuti alliance partners with leaders belonging to the allies, including BJP's Rajya Sabha member Udayanraje Bhosale, showing willingness to contest from this seat.
Bhosale, a descendant of 17th century Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, met Deputy Chief Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Devendra Fadnavis on Monday night. The former MP is said to be the party's frontrunner for the Satara Lok Sabha seat.
However, Purushottam Jadhav, who is Satara district unit president of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, is also eyeing a ticket from Satara.
Jadhav said since his party (undivided Shiv Sena) has been traditionally contesting this seat, he was the Mahayuti's natural choice for this parliamentary constituency.
Talking to reporters here on Wednesday over his meeting with Bhosale, Fadnavis said, "I met Udayanraje Bhosale, and we held talks. All things will be cleared once the party releases the list (of candidates)."
Bhosale was earlier with the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and had won two Lok Sabha elections as its candidate. However, he quit the party soon after winning the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and joined the BJP. In the Lok Sabha by-election held along with the Maharashtra assembly general elections that year, the BJP lost the Satara seat to NCP's Shrinivas Patil. Bhosale later became the BJP's Rajya Sabha member.
A close aide of Fadnavis, Narendra Patil from Satara also met Bhosale on Monday. But what exactly transpired at the meeting could not be known.
A senior BJP leader and state minister Girish Mahajan also met Bhosale on Tuesday at the latter's residence in Satara city. He had earlier met Bhosale's cousin and BJP MLA Shivendraraje Bhosale.
Talking to reporters, Mahajan said, "Shivendraraje and I spoke for some time over the Lok Sabha polls. He made it very clear that he is not interested in contesting the Lok Sabha elections. He also assured that he would work for the candidate given by the BJP."
The relationship between the Bhosale cousins is strained.
The Ajit Pawar-led NCP, which became part of the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government last year, has also expressed its wish to contest the Lok Sabha election from the Satara constituency, saying the party has been contesting and winning the seat for years, sources said.
Mahajan has sought Udayanraje Bhosale's inclination on whether he would be comfortable contesting the Lok Sabha seat on the NCP ticket, but Bhosale denied it, they said.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)