This Article is From Feb 27, 2014

Praful Patel gearing up to face old rival in Maharashtra's Vidarbha

Praful Patel gearing up to face old rival in Maharashtra's Vidarbha

File photo

Vidarbha, Maharashtra: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had announced his name in the list of 'corrupt leaders' but they are yet to field a candidate against NCP's Praful Patel. Mr Patel is currently campaigning in Vidarbha in Maharashtra.

In response to AAP's allegations on corruption, Mr Patel said sarcastically, "If I would not have been in the elite list of 100, I would have felt left out."

"There are ways to try and get justice. I don't think simple accusations are going to fly and cut much ice with anybody," he further added.

In 2009, Mr Patel won with a huge margin of over 2 lakh votes to beat his nearest rival. Now in 2014, he faces the same opponent, Nana Patole, an MLA, who will contest on a BJP ticket from the Bhandara-Gondia constituency.

With AAP targeting his rival, Mr Patole feels it is to his advantage and adds that he's the best aam aadmi for the job. "I fit the profile of the candidate they (AAP) are looking for. There is no allegation against me. AAP won't find a better candidate than me to represent the Aam Aadmi (common man)," he says.

The Vidarbha region of Maharashtra accounts for 10 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. Traditionally considered a Congress stronghold, in 2009, Vidarbha gave an equal number of seats to both the Congress-NCP and Sena-BJP alliances. A separate state of Vidarbha has been an old demand that's now being talked about once again after the creation of Telangana. This will be one of the main reasons why Vidarbha votes will be closely watched.

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