Nagpur: The Bharatiya Janata Party survived a scare in the by-election for a seat in the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) on Thursday by retaining ward no.35 (A) of the city by a mere 463 votes.
The winning candidate Sandip Gawai polled 5,711 votes whereas his nearest rival and the Congress party candidate Pankaj Thorat got 5,248 votes in the election which was necessitated due to the death of the BJP corporator Nilesh Kumbhare a couple of months ago.
The voting for this seat had taken place on Wednesday and a voter turnout of 24.38 % was registered.
With Thursday’s win, the ruling BJP has managed to retain its strength of 108 in the body of 154, however, the drastically depleted vote share and victory margin are likely to trigger some brainstorming in the saffron party.
During the municipal polls in February this year, the BJP had won this seat by 3,766 votes.
The Congress party workers were unhappy with the narrow loss and demanded a recounting after the declaration of the result. However, election officials declined their demand after which some Congress workers indulged in slogan shouting.
The Bahujan Samaj Party’s Nanda Zodape marred the chances of the Congress candidate by securing 1,675 votes.
The Republican Party of India’s Vandana Jivane got 426 votes and an independent candidate Fikira Gautam secured 668 votes helping the BJP candidate scrape through.
