The decision to contest six Maharashtra Legislative Council seats alone seems to have cost the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) three seats, with the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Shiv Sena bagging one each.
The ruling BJP-Sena coalition won three of the six seats in the council elections on Tuesday, with the Congress bagging two and the NCP one. The BJP won the Gondia-Bhandara and Jalgaon seats. Parinay Fuke, two-time Nagpur city corporator and a close confidante of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, bagged the Gondia seat, defeating sitting MLC Rajendra Jain, who is close to NCP heavyweight Praful Patel. The BJP’s Chandu Patel won Jalgaon, defeating independent candidate Vijay Patil by nearly 300 votes.
The Congress not only managed to retain Nanded with its sitting MLC Amar Rajurkar, but it snatched the Satara-Sangli seat from the NCP, with its candidate Mohan Kadam defeating NCP’s Shekhar Gore.
The Shiv Sena’s Tanaji Yadav, who won Yavatmal, secured 348 votes to trounce Congress candidate Shankar Badhe, who garnered 78 votes.
The NCP’s only respite was Pune, where Anil Bhosale got 440 votes against the BJP’s Ashok Yenpure, who secured 133 votes.
The Congress managed to improve its tally. The result has given an upper edge to former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who consistently asked either for an equal seat share or a straight fight with the NCP. According to sources, the matter was even raised in front of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who sided with Mr. Chavan.
“They (NCP) should have accepted our offer of equal seat-sharing. The results could have been different,” said Mr. Chavan. The NCP, however, blamed certain fractions in the Congress for not contesting the elections together. “We always wanted an alliance, but some fractions in the Congress consider us as their first enemy and not the BJP. We are together in the civic polls and we hope to bring better results,” said party’s chief spokesperson Nawab Malik, adding that his party candidates lost due to money power of others.
