While failing to make a clean sweep, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena alliance shattered the backbone of the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the politically and economically vital ‘sugar heartland’ in western Maharashtra, winning nine of the 12 crucial Lok Sabha seats.
The BJP-Sena juggernaut proved to be a near Waterloo for the NCP, Congress and its ally, the Raju Shetti-led Swabhimani Paksha. While Mr. Pawar’s party managed to retain Baramati and Satara and snatched the Shirur seat from the Sena, the saffron alliance staged major upsets in Maval, Kolhapur and Hatkanangale.
After years of fighting bitterly against the ‘sugar lobby’ headed by the Congress-NCP, an alliance with them proved costly for Mr. Shetti. The two-time MP was trailing against the Sena’s Dhairyasheel Mane by more than 96,000 votes at the time of going to press.
The defeat was a stunning setback for the Swabhimani Paksha, who had been complacent about an easy win in Hatkanangale, considered to be Mr. Shetti’s stronghold.
Mr. Pawar’s daughter, two-time NCP MP Supriya Sule, trounced the BJP-Sena’s Kanchan Kool by more than 1.5 lakh votes in Baramati.
But the saffron alliance dealt a severe blow to the Pawar clan in Maval, where the NCP chief’s grand nephew Parth Pawar, son of senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar, was comprehensively knocked out of the contest in his political debut. Sitting Sena MP Shrirang Barne beat him by more than two lakh votes, making it the first time in more than 50 years that a member of the Pawar family has lost a major election.
Another major setback for the NCP came in Kolhapur, where sitting NCP Dhananjay Mahadik lost heavily to the Sena-BJP’s Sanjay Mandlik by more than 2.7 lakh votes. According to observers, Mr. Mahadik’s open rivalry with local Congress leader Satej ‘Bunty’ Patil undercut his bid at re-election.
The BJP-Sena scored a thumping victory in Ahmednagar, where Dr. Sujay Vikhe-Patil won by a huge margin of 2.8 lakh votes to knock out the NCP’s Sangram Jagtap. The seat became a prestige fight owing to deep-seated rivalry between the Pawar and the Vikhe-Patil clans and following Mr. Pawar’s alleged intransigence on the NCP keeping the Ahmednagar seat, which in turn compelled Sujay Vikhe-Patil to join the BJP.
A bright spot for the NCP came in the Shirur constituency, where Dr. Amol Kolhe pulled off a remarkable victory over three-time sitting Sena MP Shivajirao Adhalrao Patil. Dr. Kolhe, a popular TV actor, upstaged Mr. Adhalrao Patil by a slender margin of 58,483 votes.
In Satara, royalist and sitting NCP MP Udayanraje Bhosale was comfortably ahead of his nearest rival, Narendra Patil of the Sena-BJP, by 1.26 lakh votes.
In Sangli, sitting BJP MP Sanjaykaka Patil was leading by 1.6 lakh votes against his Congress rival Vishal Patil, the grandson of stalwart Congressman Vasantdada Patil. Sangli saw a three-cornered contest with influential Dhangar leader Gopichand Padalkar, said to be a vote-splitter, polling more than 2.9 lakh votes.
In Pune, senior BJP leader Girish Bapat had all but routed the Congress-NCP’s Mohan Joshi, who was trailing by more than 3.24 lakh votes in a result that was, according to many, a foregone conclusion.
In Solapur constituency, the BJP’s candidate, Lingayat seer Dr. Jai Siddheshwar Shivacharya Swami, won against veteran Congressman Sushilkumar Shinde by a massive margin of 1.58 lakh votes. What undoubtedly made the contest tough for Mr. Shinde was the entry of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi leader Prakash Ambedkar, who proved to be a major vote-splitter by eating into the Congress’s Dalit-Muslim vote bank.
