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Several high-profile candidates trail in Maharashtra
In Nagpur city, the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP candidates were trailing their Congress rivals in at least two of six seats.
Early trends for the Maharashtra assembly elections and Lok Sabha bypoll are throwing up major upsets at the constituency level, with high-profile candidates struggling to establish decisive leads even as the ruling BJP-Shiv Sena combine are set return to power with a comfortable victory in the state assembly.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and Chhatrapati Shivaji descendant, Udayanraje Bhosale, was trailing by more than 30,000 votes in the Satara Lok Sabha bypoll against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate Shrinivas Patil, according to trends by the Election Commission of India at noon.
Bhosale had resigned from his Lok Sabha membership barely three months after he was elected as an NCP MP. He later joined the BJP.
In Nagpur city, the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the saffron party candidates were trailing their Congress rivals in at least two of six seats. The BJP’s Milind Mane was behind former Maharashtra minister and working president of state Congress, Nitin Raut, by over 8,500 votes, EC trends for north Nagpur showed. In the west Nagpur constituency, BJP MLA Sudhakar Deshmukh was behind his Congress rival Vikas Thakre by more than 6,000 votes at noon.
Meanwhile, senior Congressman and former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, senior NCP leader and former Sikkim governor Shrinivas Patil, NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s grandson Rohit Pawar, and Congressman Vishwajeet Kadam were among the prominent leaders who took early leads in their constituencies in western Maharashtra.
Chavan was ahead by more than 4,000 votes over BJP’s Atul Bhosale in Karad South. In Karjat-Jamkhed, Rohit Pawar took a decisive lead, leading by over 16,000 votes against the BJP candidate and incumbent Maharashtra minister Ram Shinde.
The Congress’s state unit president Balasaheb Thorat was ahead of Sahebrao Navale of the Shiv Sena in Sangamner constituency. The late Congress MLA Patangrao Kadam’s son Vishwajeet Kadam was leading over Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Vibhute in Kadegaon-Palus in Sangli district.
At 12.30pm, the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance was leading in 164 seats in the 288-member Maharashtra assembly while the Congress-NCP was on 96.
