The Congress on Friday won the Amravati division graduate constituency in the election for five seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, taking the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA) tally to three, with the result coming as a blow to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Balasahebnachi. have appeared as Shiv Sena Alliance.
Congress candidate Dhiraj Lingade won the Amravati constituency, where the counting of votes began on Thursday morning and lasted for over 32 hours and continued till Friday afternoon, defeating BJP’s sitting MLA Ranjit Patil. In this way Congress has snatched the seat from BJP.
With this, the election results of all the five seats of teachers and graduates constituencies of the council are now available and the result shows the MVA, comprising Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). emerged as the clear winner.
Voting for the biennial elections to five council seats – three teachers’ constituencies (falling in Nagpur, Konkan and Aurangabad divisions) and two graduate constituencies (Nashik and Amravati divisions) took place on 30 January. Results for four other seats in the upper house of the legislature were announced on Thursday, and two of them were won by the MVA.
In Amaravati, Congress candidate Lingade got 46,344 votes, while BJP candidate and sitting MLC Patil got 42,962 votes, an official said.
MVA-backed candidate Sudhakar Adabale and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate Vikrant Kale won from Nagpur and Aurangabad teachers’ constituencies, respectively.
In Nagpur, the hometown of Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, both BJP stalwarts, Adabale defeated BJP-backed candidate Nagorao Ganar.
BJP candidate Dhyaneshwar Mhatre won the Konkan division teachers’ constituency, while Congress rebel Satyajit Tambe, who rebelled against the party before the election, won as an independent from the Nashik division graduate seat.
Satyajit Tambe defeated his nearest rival Shubhangi Patil, an independent candidate who was supported by the MVA, by 29,465 votes.
No candidate was put up by any faction of the Shiv Sena in the elections held to fill five vacancies in the Upper House of the state legislature.
Speaking to reporters, Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole said that the MLC elections have shown the BJP “who is king”, indicating that voters are supreme, and maintained that the ruling party’s “house will crumble”.
He said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, which passed through Vidarbha last year, created enthusiasm among people for the party ahead of the council elections.
“Vidarbha has been with the Congress. We (in the past) were hit by mis-coordination and planning. This time everyone worked together and fought this war,” said Patole.
“Be it Amravati or Nagpur division, due to the trouble of BJP leaders (an apparent reference to Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis), many BJP leaders have helped us. You see how their house will crumble,” said the MPCC president.
Buoyed by the victory, Maharashtra NCP president Jayant Patil said the MVA candidates won with a huge margin indicating the prevailing political mood in the state.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said that the BJP’s defeat in Vidarbha (where Nagpur and Amravati are located) shows that the people of the region are “fed up” with the party.
These were the first MLC elections after the Eknath Shinde-led government assumed office in June last year. However, the rival Shiv Sena faction (led by Chief Minister Shinde and former CM Uddhav Thackeray) was not directly in the fray.
Teachers and graduates who met certain criteria and enrolled as voters formed the electoral college for these elections.
Among the seats in the Upper House that went to polls, Nashik was won by Sudhir Tambe (father of Satyajit Tambe) of the Congress, Nagpur by Independent candidate Nagorao Ganar, Aurangabad by NCP’s Vikram Kale, Konkan by Independent candidate Balram Patil and BJP’s Ranjit Patil in Amravati. had possession of ,
State Congress President Patole said that he still felt that the Tambe father-son duo had betrayed the party.
While party’s official candidate Sudhir Tambe withdrew his name on the last day of filing nomination, his son Satyajit filed his nomination as an independent. The Congress later suspended the father-son duo.
Patole claimed that the BJP had a role in Satyajit Tambe’s rebellion. The BJP had supported Tambe at the last moment in the MLC elections.
“You have taken one of our MLAs. We have made a strategy to win 50 MLAs from Nashik division.
After the last MLC elections held in June 2022, a group of 39 Shiv Sena MLAs led by the then cabinet minister Shinde rebelled against the party leadership, resulting in the fall of the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)