Nagpur: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has finally declared the names of its candidates from Vidarbha . The names were finalized on Monday morning. The party has fielded Mohammad Jamal, its group leader in Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) from Nagpur Lok Sabha constituency. A party worker has been given BSP ticket from Nagpur after a gap of several years. In last few parliamentary and assembly elections, outsiders were given the ticket.In the first round, only nine candidates from the state have been finalized, all from Vidarbha. The candidate from Akola is yet to be finalized. As the last date of filing nominations for other seats in the state is later, the other candidates will be declared in the coming days.The candidates are: Nagpur Mohammad Jamal, Ramtek Subhash Gajbhiye, Bhandara-Gondia Vijaya Nandurkar, Gadchiroli Dilip Mangam, Yavatmal-Washim Arun Kinwatkar, Wardha Shailesh Kumar Agrawal, Amravati Arun Wankhede, Buldhana Abdul Hafiz and Chandrapur Sushil Wasnik.Jamal became a corporator for the first time in 2017. His wife was a corporator between 2012 and 2017. He was made the party leader by BSP bosses to make the party popular among Muslims.BSP workers are hoping that Dalits and Muslims will rally behind Jamal and make him a formidable candidate. If this happens, Congress candidate Nana Patole will face lot of problems. Jamal, however, faces competition not only from Patole but from Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi candidate Sagar Dabrase. The VBA is also banking on Dalit-Muslim votes.BSP candidate Jayant Dalvi, an outsider, had polled 57,000 votes in 2004. In 2009, rebel BJP leader Manikrao Vaidya polled around 1.2 lakh votes denting BJP candidate Banwarilal Purohit’s prospects. In last general elections, BSP candidate Mohan Gaikwad polled around one lakh votes.The trend of past elections shows that BSP’s core voters do not vote for BJP or Congress. There are over 50,000 such voters in the city. According to BSP sources, party supremo Mayawati will hold a public meeting to campaign for Jamal and candidates of other nearby constituencies. They could not, however, provide a tentative date for the meeting.VBA fields Sagar DabraseVanchit Bahujan Aghadi, the front floated by Bharatiya Republican Paksh-Bahujan Mahasangh (BRP-BMS) chief Prakash Ambedkar and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi has fielded BRP-BMS state general secretary Sagar Dabrase from Nagpur. The candidates for other constituencies of Vidarbha except Akola had been declared two weeks ago, but Nagpur, Akola and Solapur was kept on hold.Ambedkar has decided to contest from Solapur and contest from Akola too. He may also field his wife. The decision will be taken on Tuesday morning. Dabrase was earlier with BSP and switched over to BRP-BMS six months ago.The other VBA candidates for eight seats of Vidarbha are : Wardha — Dhanraj Wanjari (Wanjari community), Ramtek — Kiran Rodge Patankar (SC), Bhandara-Gondia — NK Nanhe (Dhiwar), Gadchiroli — Dr Ramesh Gajbe (Mana), Chandrapur — Rajendra Mahadole (Mali), Yavatmal-Washim — Pravin Pawar (Banjara), Buldhana — Baliram Siraskar (Mali) and Amravati — Gunwant Deopare (SC).

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