Kolhapur: Internal fighting borne out of growing ambition of leaders is posing a huge problem to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in western Maharashtra from where the party is eyeing for maximum number of Lok Sabha seats.The region is set to witness some interesting contests, which includes Madha in Solapur district from where NCP chief Sharad Pawar will contest; Solapur from where senior Congress leader and former Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde will contest; Satara from where NCP MP Udayanraje Bhosale, a descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj will contest; and Hatkangale from where Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana leader Raju Shetti will contest.Apart from national topics, regional issues like reservation for Maratha and Dhangar communities, loan waiver to farmers and sugar cane price are likely to dominate electioneering.Four constituencies which are currently with NCP, are facing serious rebellion, forcing party chief Pawar to hold meetings with leaders.Madha is also no exception to the ongoing internal discord. Party workers clashed with each other in front of Pawar in a rally at Phaltan, forcing him to wind up his speech.The four constituencies with the NCP are Baramati, Madha, Satara and Kolhapur. Except Baramati, everywhere else party leaders are busy handling friction among local leaders. They admit in private that Pawar decided to contest from Madha to retain the seat. Anyone else would have been in serious trouble because of the infighting.The Congress' interest is restricted to two constituencies. Sushilkumar Shinde is all set to fight from his home district of Solapur but it is finding it tough to find a candidate for Sangli, which was a Congress bastion. Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi has announced to fight Solapur seat. Prakash Ambedkar, himself, is interested in Solapur but yet to take a decision. Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi candidate may prove a serious challenge for Congress because of division of anti-BJP votes.The biggest challenge for BJP in western Maharashtra is Madha constituency. The party is yet to finalize a candidate who can take on Pawar and is capable to exploit infighting in NCP. In Sangli, BJP MP Sanjay Patil is also facing opposition but absence of a strong candidate from Congress may make BJP challenge little easy.NCP has set the target of double digit seats in Maharashtra this time. It can hope to bag maximum number of seats from Western Maharashtra considering its past record. NCP leaders say that the elections are a rehearsal for the assembly elections by the end of this year, where party has much higher stakes.

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