Sena MLA threatens Sameer Bhujbal with death

Mumbai: Shiv Sena legislator Suhas Kande, who is seeking reelection from the Nandgaon assembly constituency, on Wednesday threatened independent candidate and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Chhagan Bhujbal’s nephew Sameer Bhujbal with death over accusations of bogus voting. After polling ended in the evening, the collector of Nandgaon, Jalaj Sharma, directed officials to initiate legal proceedings against Kande, said sources.

The incident occurred on Wednesday afternoon when Bhujbal, acting on information about alleged bogus voting, arrived with police at a college run by Kande where voters were reportedly being concealed. The encounter quickly escalated into a heated verbal altercation between the two camps.

As police attempted to intervene, Kande allegedly threatened Bhujbal in front of the media, saying, “Tujha murder fix aahe aaj” (your murder is fixed today). The threat was captured on video.

Kande, who defeated Sameer Bhujbal’s cousin Pankaj Bhujbal in the 2019 assembly polls, had threatened Sameer Bhujbal’s supporters in the last week of October this year. That incident too was captured on video and likely prompted Bhujbal to settle on ‘Bhayamukta Nandgaon’ (terror free Nandgaon) as the slogan for his poll campaign.

Speaking to Hindustan Times, Bhujbal said Wednesday’s incident had exposed Kande’s politics of terror in Nandgaon before the entire state. The legislator had brought around 10,000 outsiders into the polling station for the purpose of bogus voting, he alleged, adding, “While Kande was threatening to kill me, an externed criminal who is facing attempt to murder charges approached me from behind. When our party workers pointed this out to the police, they took the person aside and allowed him to go instead of arresting him.” The collector must take suo moto action in the matter, said Bhujbal. “I am too going to file a complaint against Kande with the police and the election commission,” he said.

Kande, however, refuted the allegations regarding bringing in people for bogus voting and threatening Bhujbal. The Nandgaon constituency has a large number of sugarcane cutters and an altercation erupted after Bhujbal and his associates assaulted some of them and tried to prevent them from exercising their franchise.

“When I came to know about the incident, I rushed to the college and asked police and election officials to check the voter identification cards of those labourers,” Kande told HT. The workers were allowed to vote after authorities verified their credentials, he added.

Regarding the alleged death threat to Bhujbal, he said, “While the altercation was underway, I saw a worker assaulting another worker and told him not to beat the latter as he would die. I did not name Sameer Bhujbal.”