Setback for NCP as Nandurbar district chief set to quit

Four members of Gavit family likely to contest from four Assembly constituencies in Nandurbar district

IN YET another setback for the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), its Nandurbar district chief Rajendra Gavit has decided to quit the party and throw his hat into the electoral ring from Shahada constituency.

The move reportedly follows a purported decision of the party to give the seat to ally Congress during the seat-sharing talks. The Congress is likely to field advocate Padmakar Valvi from Shahada. “I am still contemplating whom to join. I will join a party which offers me a ticket,” he told The Indian Express. With his decision to contest from Shahada seat, Nandurbar district will have a unique distinction of having a member of the Gavit family contesting from each of its four Assembly constituencies.

In 2014 Assembly elections, three Gavit brothers contested from three of the four constituencies in the district the NCP and BJP.

Rajendra Gavit’s elder brother Dr Vijay Kumar Gavit, an MLA from Nandurbar, has served as a minister for 19 years under both the BJP-Shiv Sena and Congress-NCP governments. Known to swim with the tide, Dr Vijay Kumar had decided to jump ship in 2014, to make way for his elder daughter Hina to contest successfully in the Lok Sabha from Nandurbar seat on a BJP ticket. Subsequently, he joined the BJP and won the Assembly polls that year from Nandurbar seat.

Sharad Gavit, the youngest of the three brothers, who represented Navapur as a Samajwadi Party MLA in 2009, fought the 2014 elections unsuccessfully on an NCP ticket. In 2014, Rajendra Gavit had filed his nomination as a Shiv Sena candidate for Shahada seat, but had later jumped ship and filed his candidature as an NCP contestant.

In 2019, the three brothers are expected to contest from their cultivated constituencies. The family is also planning to field Dr Vijay Kumar Gavit’s younger daughter Supriya from Akkalkuwa.

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