Pune:
Senior NCP leader and spokesman Ankush Kakde's nomination as the party candidate for a city Assembly seat for October 15 elections was officially declared invalid during scrutiny on Monday.
Mr Kakde's nomination was rejected as he had missed on tagging a mandatory election affidavit to his nomination forms.
A close confidant of NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Mr Kakde missed the 3 PM deadline on Saturday -- the last date of filing of nominations -- to submit the affidavit in time after filing his papers. When he returned with the required affidavit, the door of the election office was closed.
The rejection of Mr Kakde's nomination papers for the prestigious Kasaba Peth seat, currently held by sitting BJP MLA Girish Bapat, has assumed a political hue as it has subsequently left Deepak Mankar as the NCP candidate in the fray.
Mr Mankar, a former deputy mayor of Congress who faced criminal cases, had filed his nomination also as NCP candidate for the same constituency after crossing over to NCP just three days ago which preceded his meeting with former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar.
When contacted, Mr Kakde confirmed the development and said although Mr Mankar faced criminal litigation in the past, he was absolved of all charges by the court and there were no cases pending against him.