The drought-affected Marathwada region delivered a decisive mandate in favour of the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while also giving the Congress a much-improved tally.
The allies together secured 30 seats in the region, compared to the previous tally of 24. However, the Congress also managed to pocket eight seats as opposed to just one in 2014. The party’s showing was largely on the back of a handsome victory for the Deshmukh brothers — Amit securing a win with over 40,415 votes in Latur City and Dhiraj winning the Latur Rural seat by a record 1.21 lakh votes.
The Congress also won the Deglur, Nanded South, Bhokar, Jalna, Hadgaon and Pathri constituencies. Meanwhile, the BJP won the Ausa, Tuljapur, Aurangabad East, Umarkhed, Badnapur, Bhokardan, Gangapur, Georai, Hingoli, Jintur, Kaij, Kinwat, Mukhed, Naigaon, Nilanga, Partur and Phulambri.
The region, bordering Karnataka and Telangana, witnessed several battles of prestige among prominent political families, including Rural Development Minister and BJP leader Pankaja Munde, who lost to her cousin Dhananjay Munde from Parli constituency with 30,701 votes.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)’s Sandeep Kshirsagar defeated his uncle and State Minister for Employment Guarantee Jaydutt Kshirsagar, who was an import into the Sena from the NCP.
Shiv Sena’s Pradip Jaiswal won from Aurangabad Central.
In Aurangabad, the Sena-BJP combine won all six seats, of which one was with the Congress since 2014. For the first time in the city’s history, Aurangabad will not have an MLA from the Congress.
During the seat-sharing talks with the NCP, the Congress was allotted only one of the six Assembly seats, Aurangabad (West).
The India Today -Axis poll had claimed that the saffron alliance will secure 29 seats in Marathwada, 29 in Konkan and 22 in western Maharashtra.
