The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has fielded Shiv Sena MLA Rajan Salvi against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Rahul Narvekar for the Maharashtra Assembly speaker's post, news agency ANI reported on Saturday, 2 July.
The election comes days after a long-winded political crisis in Maharashtra, which ended with the swearing-in of rebel Sena MLA Eknath Shinde as the chief minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis as deputy chief minister.
Speaking about Salvi's nomination, Maharashtra Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat said that the party had the first claim but all of them sat down with Shiv Sena and NCP and this decision was taken together, reported ANI.
Elections for the Speaker's post are to be held on Sunday, 3 July.
Meanwhile, the new Maharashtra government, led by Shinde, will face a floor test on 4 July, the last day of the two-day special session of the Assembly.
First-time BJP MLA Narvekar had, on Friday, filed his nomination as the party candidate for the post of Assembly speaker. Salvi filed his nomination on Saturday.
Jayant Patil, Dhananjay Munde (NCP), Ashok Chavan (Congress), Sunil Prabhu (Shiv Sena) were prominent among those who were present with Salvi when he filed his papers.
A communique issued by the state legislature secretariat to the Assembly members said the election would be held on 3 July and nominations for the post would be accepted till 12 noon on Saturday.
The position has been lying vacant since Congress MLA Nana Patole resigned from the post in February 2021.
All About the Candidates for the Post of Assembly Speaker
Rajan Prabhakar Salvi, from Ratnagiri district in Maharashtra is the current MLA from Rajapur Vidhan Sabha constituency. He has been elected for three consecutive terms in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in 2009, 2014 and 2019.
First-time BJP MLA Rahul Narvekar is an advocate by profession and was born and brought up in the Colaba area in Mumbai. He comes from a political family as he is the son of Suresh Narvekar, who was a Municipal Councillor in Colaba.
His father-in-law is NCP leader Ramraje Nimbalkar, his brother Makarand Narvekar is a second-term Municipal Councillor and his sister-in-law Harshita Narvekar is a Municipal Councillor.
He was associated with the Shiv Sena for 15 years and was a spokesperson of the Youth Wing. Reports suggested that his long stint with the party ended due to an issue of nomination to the Maharashtra Legislative Council with the party leadership.
He then joined the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in 2014 and contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Maval, but lost to Shrirang Appa Barne of the Shiv Sena.
Just ahead of the 2019 Maharashtra assembly polls, he moved to the BJP. and won the assembly elections from the same constituency, defeating Congress' Ashok Jagtap.
(With inputs from ANI and PTI.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)