Aurangabad: Former NCP MLA Bhausaheb Patil Chikatgaonkar, who defeated Shiv Sena former MLA RM Vani in Vaijapur tehsil, joined the Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena in the presence of party chief Uddhav Thackeray along with other office-bearers in Mumbai on Wednesday.
After Sena MLA of Vaijapur Ramesh Bornare joined the Shinde group, Zilla Parishad health chairman Avinash Galande was seen as a future candidate for the Legislative Assembly. With the entry of Chikatgaonkar, there is a possibility that Galande will face a tough fight for the candidature. Amid the vertical split in the Sena, five MLAs from the district went to the Shinde group. However the Thackeray group made sure that at least few office bearers will remain with the party. Along with Chikatgaonkar, tehsil panchayat samiti president Adv Pratap Patil Nimbalkar, APMC chairman Prataprao Patil Borde, BJP Pachod district vice president Badrinarayan Bhumre, Dr Pandurang Rathod and other members also entered Sena on Wednesday. MLC Ambadas Danve, Subhash Desai and Vinod Ghosalkar were present.