After the demise of sitting legislator Mukta Tilak last week and the elevation of Girish Bapat to Lok Sabha in 2019, the Kasba Peth Assembly constituency in Maharashtra, a BJP bastion, opens up for aspirants outside the Tilak and Bapat families. However, the demand for giving party tickets to Tilak family members has already come up.
Tilak, 57, great-granddaughter-in-law of freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak, died of cancer on December 22. She served the BJP for 30 years and was elected to Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) consecutively four times. She was the former mayor of Pune and was the first from the BJP after the party came to power for the first time in the PMC, in 2017.
Bapat, 71, was elevated to Lok Sabha from the Pune seat in 2019, prior to which he was elected to the state Assembly five times consecutively from 1995. He was earlier elected thrice as a corporator in the PMC. The veteran BJP leader has not been not keeping well. He has roped in his daughter-in-law Swarali Bapat, who is also the daughter of BJP leader Neeta Kelkar, into active politics as his son has stayed away from politics.
In 2019, Bapat made way for a new party candidate at the Kasba Peth Assembly segment and Tilak was the party’s choice considering the popularity and importance of the Tilak family.
“My colleague Mukta Tilak recently passed away. The BJP should give party ticket to her husband Shailesh Tilak or son Karan Tilak in the bypoll for the Kasba assembly seat and all other political parties should support them considering the contribution of the Tilak family in the freedom struggle,” said BJP leader Ujjwal Keskar. Incidentally, Shailesh Tilak has not been active in politics while Karan Tilak has recently started working for the BJP at the local level.
There are many other aspirants for the party ticket. Among them are former corporators Ganesh Bidkar, Hemant Rasane and Dheeraj Ghate. Bidkar is a confidant of senior state-level BJP leaders while Rasane was a three-time standing committee chairperson of the BJP. Ghate is known as a staunch Hindutva activist.
“Many aspirants in BJP see the present situation as the right and the only time to make their moves to contest the Kasba Assembly seat with the party unlikely to give a ticket to inexperienced members of Tilak or Bapat family,” said a BJP leader, adding it would be the party that would take the final call on candidature.
The BJP’s strength was earlier restricted to the central part of the city but increased tremendously in the last few years with the party winning all eight Assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat in 2014. It consolidated it by coming to power in the PMC for the first time in history in 2017. It also won six Assembly seats and the Pune Lok Sabha seat in 2019.