Day after back-stab charge, Congress suspends two Vidarbha MLC candidates

Nagpur: Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) on Friday suspended its Yavatmal and Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli MLC candidates after both pulled out of the contest with the Yavatmal Congress chief publicly accusing the party's nominee of betrayal.Yavatmal Local Authorities MLC candidate Sahebrao Kamble and Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli Local Authorities MLC candidate Shailesh Agrawal were charged with withdrawing their nominations without informing the party brass and creating hurdles for the party despite requesting for tickets, as per the suspension order by MPCC senior vice-president Ganesh Patil. The action was taken on the directive of state party president Harshvardhan Sapkal, who cancelled their primary membership. On Thursday, Yavatmal Congress district president Sachin Naik came out sharply against Kamble's decision to withdraw, saying "he stabbed the party in the back and this is nothing short of a disrobing of democracy".Kamble on Thursday defended his withdrawal on the grounds of arithmetic. "We did not have the required numerical strength to win the election. Therefore, I decided to withdraw my candidature. However, I consider myself fortunate that the party reposed faith in a worker like me and gave me the opportunity to contest."The withdrawals on Thursday allowed Mahayuti's Dushyant Chaturvedi to be declared elected unopposed from the Yavatmal local authorities constituency, where 446 municipal councillors were eligible to vote.