Nagpur: After a prolonged tug-of-war within BJP over nomination for Nagpur Graduates Constituency poll, ex-MLA Sudhakar Kohale pipped former mayor and ex-MLC Anil Sole. Both were keen on getting the party’s backing for the upcoming poll, which led to a deadlock within the saffron party, even as Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) moved quickly, backing sitting MLC Abhijit Wanjarri.Kohale will file nomination on Monday at 10am in the presence of guardian minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule.Kohale, who was also in charge of voter registration for the polls, had been vocal about wanting to contest. This was seen as his political rehabilitation after he lost the 2024 Assembly polls. But Sole, who had earlier been an MLC from Nagpur Graduates Constituency from 2014-2020, was looking to return to the state legislature. This seemed to be his only chance, since other elections are still a few years away.The early discussions within BJP to get one of them to back off failed to yield results, and the power struggle which was earlier spoken about in hushed tones was now part of the talk in all local party events.The friction reached such an extreme level that the top three decision-makers for BJP in Vidarbha — CM Devendra Fadnavis, Union minister Nitin Gadkari and revenue minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule — had to conduct a closed-door meeting last week. The meeting, held at Gadkari’s residence, lasted for almost 90 minutes without reaching a conclusion.A senior BJP office-bearer told TOI, “Obviously efforts were made to pacify both Kohale and Sole and even consider a ‘compromise candidate’. But with both of them firm on fighting the polls, there was no way a third person could even be brought into the picture. So, it had to come down to either of the two.”The office-bearer, however, reiterated that he was not part of the decision-making process and hence could not confirm what swayed things in Kohale’s favour.Another senior member of the party in Nagpur said, “Kohale had been given responsibility for the voter registration drive, so he was spearheading the ground-level effort. Hence, one could say that right from the start, he was the favoured one.”Kohale, who joined the party in 1990, became a corporator in 2007, then won the South Nagpur assembly seat in 2014. He was also the president of BJP’s city unit from 2015 to 2019. In 2023, he took over as president of the party’s rural unit and a year later unsuccessfully contested the assembly polls from West Nagpur.
