Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which are contesting the Maharashtra Assembly polls in an alliance, have decided not to field a candidate from Kothrud Assembly constituency in Pune, extending support to the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) candidate instead.
MNS has fielded Kishore Shinde while BJP is banking on its State chief Chandrakant Patil who filed his nomination on Thursday. The Kothrud seat was earlier represented by Medha Vishram Kulkarni from BJP.
With Congress-NCP alliance refraining from fielding a candidate, the stage is set for a direct fight between Patil and Shinde in Kothrud.
The Congress is contesting the polls in alliance with the NCP. Both parties are contesting on 125 seats each in the 288-member Assembly and its allies will field their candidates on the remaining 38 seats.
Maharashtra will go to polls on October 21 and the counting of votes will take place on October 24.
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