While the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) registered a clear victory in the Dhule-Nandurbar Legislative Council byelection, the ruling tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi had the upper hand in four of the five teachers and graduates’ constituencies as the counting of votes began on Thursday.
The BJP’s candidate for Dhule-Nandurbar, Amrish Patel, won a thumping victory, snaring 332 of a total 434 votes cast. His nearest rival, the Congress’s Abhijeet Patil, could secure only 98 votes.
The Dhule-Nadurbar by-poll was necessitated after Mr. Patel, a sitting MLC, quit the Congress to join the BJP. “Mr. Patel’s resounding win is a big political setback for the MVA and underlines the tensions between the NCP and the Congress… We [the BJP] are certain to sweep the teachers and graduates’ constituencies as well,” said senior BJP leader and former minister Girish Mahajan.
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While the counting for the five graduates and teachers’ constituency seats, of which three are graduates and the remaining are teachers’ constituencies — is under way, the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA has secured a clear lead in four of these seats.
The MVA’s Jayant Asgaonkar (Congress) has secured a comfortable lead of 4,000 votes over his BJP rival in the Pune teachers’ constituency.
Likewise, in the hotly contested Pune graduates’ constituency, the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) candidate, sugar baron Arun Lad, has secured a huge lead of 10,000 votes over his nearest rival, the BJP’s Sangram Deshmukh.
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The Sangli-based Mr. Lad, who is the president of the Kranti Co-operative Sugar Factory, was responsible for the NCP’s defeat in the last Pune graduates’ constituency election, when he raised the banner of rebellion.
The seat, traditionally an NCP bastion, became a ‘prestige fight’ with senior NCP leader Jayant Patil, who is the current Water Resources Minister, and BJP State president Chandrakant Patil, who till recently held the Pune graduates’ seat, both campaigning vigorously for their respective candidates.
In the Nagpur graduates’ constituency seat, the MVA’s Abhijit Vanjari secured a lead of nearly 5,000 votes over his BJP rival. In the Aurangabad graduates’ constituency, the NCP’s Satish Chavan has secured a massive lead of over 17,000 votes against his BJP adversary, Satish Boralkar, and appears to be coasting to victory.
In the Amravati teachers’ constituency, an Independent, Kiran Sarnaik, has secured a slender lead of less than 1,000 votes over the MVA’s Shrikant Deshpande.