Denied Ticket for Assembly Election, MLA Goes Missing

Mumbai: After being denied a ticket to contest the upcoming Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha elections, incumbent MLA Shrinivas Vanga from the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has reportedly gone missing. Police are currently searching for him, as he has not been reachable for several hours.

According to his family, Vanga, 42, has been missing since 7 pm on Monday as he severed all communications from phone and left his house. The police have initiated action to search for the missing leader on his family’s complaint.

“He (Shrinivas) did not tell anyone where he was going when he left the house. His phones are also switched off. We tried to contact him repeatedly. I asked their driver, bodyguard and also called his friends, but there has been no contact,” said Srinivas’ wife Suman Vanga.

The development comes a day after Shiv Sena announced the name of former MP Rajendra Gavit as its candidate for the Palghar assembly seat, sidelining Vanga, a sitting MLA from the constituency. Gavit, a former BJP leader, had recently rejoined Shinde's party, sealing the nomination.

Incidentally Vanga is the only MLA out of 40 MLAs, who had sided with chief minister Eknath Shinde during the split in the Shiv Sena, to be denied a ticket in the Vidhan Sabha polls. After a split in the Shiv Sena in 2022, Vanga had supported Shinde and was also reportedly at the forefront of arranging resources for moving the rebel MLAs to Surat.

Upset over being denied a ticket by his party, Vanga on Monday expressed guilt and remorse for leaving the Uddhav Thackrey-led Shiv Sena following the split of the Shiv Sena. In an emotional outburst, he accused Shinde of failing to protect loyalists within the party.

“I made a grave mistake by joining the Shinde-led faction,” said Vangar. He also described Shinde’s rival and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray as a ‘dev manus’ (Godlike man).

While denying him the Palghar ticket, Vanga was reportedly told by his party leaders that results of an internal survey were negative for him and that he would not be re-elected from the constituency in the Vidhan Sabha elections.

After the demise of his father MP Chintaman Vanga, Srinivas was denied a ticket by the BJP to contest the 2018 Lok Sabha bypoll from Palghar. He joined the then undivided Shiv Sena and fought the bypoll only to face defeat from Rajendra Gavit, who contested as a BJP candidate. However, in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Gavit joined the Shiv Sena and won the Palghar seat again. As compensation, Vanga was given the ticket from the Palghar Vidhan Sabha (Scheduled Tribes) seat from the undivided Shiv Sena.