It's a Kalmadi list for Municipal polls

pune: despite stiff opposition from state minister balasaheb shivarkar, mlc ulhas pawar and anantrao gadgil, rajya sabha member suresh kalmadi managed to dominate the selection of congress nominees for the february 10 municipal elections. a whopping 52 of the 69 sitting congress corporators, most of whom belong to the kalmadi faction, have bagged party tickets.while 12 sitting congressmen have failed to secure a re-nomination, the remaining five have managed to wrest tickets for close relatives. mla chandrakant chhajed has secured the party ticket for his son, anand, while corporator sadanand shetty has not only got a ticket for himself, but one for his wife, sujata, as well. the latter is billed to replace sitting corporator devki shetty. jayant bhokare, former corporator and husband of sitting corporator vidya bhokare, shivaji kedari, husband of sitting corporator bhavna kedari, and anil satpute, son of sitting corporator laxmibai satpute, have also bagged congress tickets. of the 52 sitting corporators who have been repeated by the congress, 44 are considered staunch kalmadi loyalists. they include mayor dattatreya gaikwad, sarita wadiyar, shailaja khedekar, john paul, bapurao karne, meenakshi makhmale, prakash mantri, mohan kamble, satish londhe, deepak mankar, damodar kumbre, sheela raut, meena katate, anjani nimhan, satish dhotre, dipti choudhary, shivaji kshirsagar, rajani tribhuvan, dayaram rajguru, shashikala kumbhar, vijay mohite, shiva mantri, mukari algude, shobha barne, arvind shinde, sadanand shetty, usman hiroli, abhay chhajed, aba bagul, anil jadhav, shankar pawar, vatsala andekar, ramakant andekar, manohar nande, hiraman shinde, rashid shaikh, ramesh bagwe, meenakshi kadgi, arun dhimdhime, kamal vyavahare, vilas wadekar, deepak marne, balaji telkar and datta sagre. even among the remaining eight sitting corporators who have bagged party tickets, only three - anil bhosale, ajit darekar and ramesh khanna - are true kalmadi opponents. the remaining five - ramdas pawar, sanjay balgude, anees sundke, vandana chavan and subrao kadam - neither belong to the kalmadi camp nor are seen as being anti-kalmadi. besides these sitting corporators, eight former congress corporators have also managed to bag party tickets. they include sangeeta deokar, bhagwan jadhav, parvati bhadke, laxmibai kamble, neeta pardeshi-rajput, gopal tiwari, virendra kirad and shrikant shirole. while kalmadi has dominated the selection, the protest from the shivarkar-pawar faction has forced him to shift the panels of some of the existing corportartors. for example, loyalist deepak mankar has bagged a ticket from the karvenagar panel instead of his favoured mit college panel, paud.