The Kasba Peth bypoll election results have emerged as a big setback for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which lost its traditional seat in Maharashtra’s Pune to the Congress after almost three decades.
Congress candidate Ravindra Dhangekar won this election by a margin of more than 11,000 votes. Losing of seat despite being in power is being seen as a big blow to the CM Eknath Shinde-deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis government.
From the first round, Dhangekar took the lead over BJP’s Hemant Rasane and maintained it in every round. As per the final tally, Dhangekar got 73,194 votes and his opponent Rasane managed to get 62,244 votes.
However, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) lost the other bypoll seat — Chinchwad — to BJP’s Ashwini Jagtap. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate Nana Kate lost by a margin of 6,000 votes.
CONG LAST WON KASBA IN 1991
The Congress last won the Kasba Peth seat in 1991, but in 1995, BJP leader and Member of Parliament Girish Bapat won this seat by defeating the Congress Candidate. In 2019, Girish Bapat won the Lok Sabha elections and the ticket was given to another Brahmin candidate, Mukta Tilak, who won the election with a big margin against the Congress.
While speaking to News18, Vishwajeet Kadam, Congress leader and former state minister in the MVA government, said, “It was a combined effort of all MVA parties. We have to give credit to Ravindra Dhangekar, who has got a connect with people in the constituency.”
Kadam said: “The misuse of power has not gone down well with common people.”
Another former minister of MVA government, and leader of Shiv Sena (UBT) Aditya Thackeray said, “This is a very important win, not only for us, but also for democracy. It’s a big boost to the MVA.”
CHINCHWAD LOSS
Regarding the Chinchwad loss, Thackeray said, “One can blame anyone at this point, but see the difference of margin…”
In this constituency, as expected, MVA rebel candidate Rahul Kalate spoiled the game by getting 10,000 crucial votes.
Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly Ajit Pawar said, “Until the last minute, we had two candidates, Nana Kate and Rahul Kalate. But at the MVA meeting, they all decided to give ticket to Kate, instead of Kalate. In the 2019 elections, Kalate got 1 lakh plus votes with the support of Congress and NCP. Now he must have got to know where he stands, as this time he contested as an independent against the MVA. If Kalate had not contested the election, our candidate could have easily won this seat with a good margin.”
PRESTIGE ISSUE
The bypolls have become a prestige issue for the MVA as well as the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance. Top leaders from both the sides campaigned extensively in these constituencies. But trends of the by-polls show an alarming sign for the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP alliance before the 2024 polls.
Reacting to the election results, Ram Kadam of the BJP said, “We win some and lose some in elections. This happens in politics. Winning is a big responsibility. We will certainly introspect why we lost the Kasba seat.”
Read all the Latest Politics News here
Comments
0 comment