Kunal Tilak, the son of late BJP MLA Mukta Tilak, was in the running for the Kasba Peth Assembly seat. He had on numerous occasions openly expressed his aspirations to contest the seat once held by his late mother. However, the saffron party chose to renominate Hemant Rasane. He will face Congress's incumbent MLA Ravindra Dhangekar.
Meanwhile, despite not getting the ticket, Tilak said he was a loyal party worker and would continue his work in order to regain the BJP bastion. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), he wrote, "I was present at the time of filing the nomination form of Hemant Rasane, who is BJP's official candidate from the Kasba Peth Assembly seat. I also aspired to contest myself. For the last two years, I have been trying to reach the people, trying to facilitate the work of the poor and maintaining public relations. But we, the Tilak family, consider the party's decision as final. As I am a loyal worker of the BJP, I will continue my work and will work hard in the upcoming election to regain the stronghold of the party and once again the lotus will bloom in Kasba Peth."
Earlier, BJP's Pune City Chief Dheeraj Ghate slammed the party after he was denied the ticket to contest the upcoming elections from the Kasba Peth seat. "You want a Hindutva government but don't want a Hindutva activist for 30 years as a candidate," Ghate wrote on X immediately after the BJP declared Rasane as the candidate.
However, Ghate, too, chose not to rebel against the BJP and joined Rasane's campaign. He said, "It is human nature to be upset by certain decisions. But it is equally important to move forward without getting stuck in them. I have always been a true worker of the BJP and will continue to be so. Pune City BJP will make all necessary efforts to bring a BJP-Mahayuti government once again to the state."
