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National

Surprising show by Congress in Maharashtra

Special Correspondent

It claims 17 of the 48 seats in the State while the NCP gets eight

MUMBAI: The Congress came up with a surprising performance in Maharashtra winning 17 of the 48 seats, while its ally the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) only managed eight in the results of the Lok Sabha elections which were declared on Saturday.

The Congress and the NCP won all six seats in Mumbai helped by the Marathi vote division caused by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). In the rest of State, it relied on other factors to go ahead. The BJP won nine seats as opposed to 13 in 2004 while the Sena got 11, one less than last time.

The MNS factor helped Sanjeev Naik of the NCP beat his rival Vijay Chougule of the Sena in Thane. Thane is a Sena bastion and the BJP’s consolation came from the fact that Anand Paranjpe beat NCP’s Vasant Davkhare in neighbouring Kalyan.

The Congress won Bhiwandi, while in an upset, the Baliram Jadhav Bahujan Vikas Aghadi triumphed in Palghar (ST) all part of the Thane region, beating both the Congress and the BJP candidates.

The Congress improved on the 13 seats it won in 2004 while the NCP got a setback in two seats — Hingoli and Hatkanangale — where two Union Ministers Suryakanta Patil and Nivedita Mane were defeated. In Hatkanangale, Ms. Mane fell to Raju Shetty of the Swabhiman Shetkari Sanghatana, a farmer leader while Ms. Patil was defeated by Subhash Wankhede of the Sena.

However, it was Western Maharashtra, where the NCP suffered an embarrassment with the victory of Sadashivrao Mandlik a rebel candidate who was denied a ticket by the NCP.

Mandlik a sitting MP defeated NCP’s Sambhaji Sahu. In another setback, in the Shirdi reserved seat, Ramdas Athavale , MP of the Republican Party of India (Athavale group), a Congress ally lost to the Sena.

The NCP- Congress which won nine seats from Western Maharashtra in 2004 election, this time won only six which included Sushilkumar Shinde from Solapur (SC), Sharad Pawar from Madha and his daughter Supriya Sule from Baramati.

The loan waiver and the farmers’ packages seem to have helped the Congress-NCP win five of the ten seats in Vidarbha, where they had fared miserably in 2004, winning only Nagpur.

In North Maharashtra Manikrao Gavit saved the day for the Congress retaining Nandurbar and Sameer Bhujbal of the NCP scraped through in Nashik, while the BJP-Sena won the four other seats. In Marathwada Jaywant Awale of the Congress won in Latur, Bhaskar Khatgaonkar (Congress) won Nanded and NCP’s Padamsinh Patil triumphed in Osmanabad, increasing the Congress-NCP presence in that region. Gopinath Munde of the BJP won Beed defeating the NCP.

In the Konkan too the Congress got a major gain with State Industries Minister Narayan Rane’s son Nilesh winning the newly created Ratnagiri- Sindhudurg seat defeating veteran Suresh Prabhu of the Shiv Sena. However, the Congress’ A.R. Antulay, Union Minister, lost the Raigad seat to Senas Anand Geete. The new seat of Maval too went to Gajanan Babar of the Sena who defeated Azam Pansare of the NCP.

Corrections and Clarifications

A report "In Maharashtra, Congress springs a surprise" (May 17, 2009) said that the NCP got eight seats while the KBK Graphic on page 1, "Lok Sabha poll outcome 2009" (May 17, 2009), gave the figure as nine seats. Mr. Vijay Kumar, Managing Editor, KBK Newsgraphics Network clarifies: The figure in the graphic is correct as the NCP has won eight seats from Maharashtra and one seat from Tura. Therefore, the report giving eight seats to the NCP in Maharashtra is also correct.

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