Kolhapur: The top leadership of the district unit of the Congress party has sought the Kolhapur Lok Sabha constituency seat for it’s party candidate instead of the NCP’s.The proposal to contest this Lok Sabha (LS) constituency has been sent by the leadership of the district unit to the state unit of the party. As per the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) seat sharing arrangement for the last LS election, the Kolhapur seat belongs to the NCP, which had won the seat last time.However, the local leadership of the Congress believes that the situation has definitely changed and their party is now well positioned to take on the NCP, which is facing internal strife between Member of Parliament Dhananjay Mahadik and party workers and other local leaders who are opposed to his candidature for the forthcoming LS polls. The Congress party claims that they have been successful in keeping their flock together and no internal strife has been seen among the leaders, which makes it possible to pose a united front to fight against the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates.Prakash Awade, newly appointed district head of the Congress said, “The proposal is with the state unit for further consideration. We are in a good position in every part of the constituency.”Awade also said that the party leaders will support the official candidate of the Congress-NCP alliance. There are differences among Congress and NCP leaders, which will be bridged ahead of the forthcoming elections through an appropriate channel, said Awade. The Congress proposal has made NCP leaders jittery. Already, Congress MLC Satej Patil has said that he will not support Mahadik if he is given a ticket again. Patil alleges that Mahadik has helped the BJP in every election that has taken place in Kolhapur since 2014 LS election.A senior NCP leader said, “The people have always supported the NCP over here, even when the BJP was sweeping the entire country. Although there are differences among our party ranks, the discussion at the highest level has taken place and the official nomination for the election will jointly be announced soon.”

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