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Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday announced that Union Minister Narayan Rane will contest the Lok Sabha polls from the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency in Maharashtra.
Rane will face the Sena (UBT) leader and incumbent MP Vinayak Raut from this seat. Narayan Rane had repeatedly claimed before that the Sindhudurg-Ratnagiri constituency will have a BJP candidate and that he is ready to contest from the seat if the party asks him to do so. Rane is currently the Minister of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) in the BJP-led Central government. "Sindhudur-Ratnagiri Loksabha Constituency is of BJP and BJP will only contest on it. If the party gives me a ticket then I am ready to contest," he said. Earlier, the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) camp also claimed the same seat. Shiv Sena's senior leader Ram Kadam had strongly countered Rane's stance on the seat. The BJP and Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena are in the 'Mahayuti' alliance in Maharashtra for the Lok Sabha elections. The tiff over the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg Lok Sabha constituency had been brewing for the past many months. In the 2019 general elections, Vinayak Raut from Shiv Sena emerged victorious gathering around 50.8 per cent. Narayan Rane, who fought after forming his own party Maharashtra Swabhimaan Paksh gathered 31 per cent of the votes. Maharashtra, with its 48 Lok Sabha seats, is the second-largest contributor to the Lower House of Parliament after Uttar Pradesh. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 23 out of 25 contested seats, while the undivided Shiv Sena secured 18 out of 23 seats. Elections to the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra will be held in five phases on April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13, and May 20. The election for 543 Lok Sabha seats will be held in seven phases starting April 19. The counting of votes will take place on June 4. (ANI)
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