BJP fields for NCP min Vijay Kumar Gavit's daughter Heena in Maha

The Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in Maharashtra were dealt a serious blow on Wednesday when senior NCP minister Vijaykumar Gavit’s daughter, Dr Heena, was declared the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) official for the Lok Sabha polls in northern Maharashtra’s Nandurbar constituency. On Wednesday, Heena joined the BJP in Delhi, in the presence of the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, BJP president Rajnath Singh, BJP leader Nitin Gadkari, Gopinath Munde and others. She has been pitted against sitting nine-time Congress MP Manikrao Gavit, who won the Lok Sabha election in 1981 and has not lost since then. [caption id=“attachment_1441517” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP[/caption] At present, Heena, who is enrolled in a post-graduate course in medicine from Grant Medical College in Mumbai, is also an office bearer of the Rashtravadi Yuvati Congress led by NCP MP Supriya Sule. The Rashtravadi Yuvati Congress is the NCP’s initiative to mobilise and mould young women for careers in politics. On Monday, NCP leader and Deputy chief minster Ajit Pawar threatened to dismiss Dr Vijaykumar Gavit, medical education minister in the Democratic Front government of Congress and NCP in Maharashtra. “I hope my colleague will not commit such a mistake. If at all his daughter joins BJP, I will write to the Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan asking him to dismiss him immediately as a minister. I will also sack him from the party,” Pawar had said. Vijaykumar Gavit has helped the NCP to increase its base in the tribal district of Nandurbar, which was once considered a Congress stronghold. His brother, Sharad, is an independent MLA. Vijaykumar Gavit and Manikarao Gavit have had a long rivalry for several decades. Meanwhile, Ajit Pawar wrote to the chief minster on Wednesday asking for the dismissal of Vijaykumar Gavit from the Cabinet. Sources said that the chief minister has sent the letter to the governor.