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Maharashtra Legislative Council elections: BJP loses seats in strongholds Nagpur and Pune
The constituency was represented by Union minister Nitin Gadkari as well as former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’ father, late Gangadharrao Fadnavis
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suffered a setback in elections to six seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council (MLC). The ruling three-party coalition, Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won four seats, while the BJP won one. An independent candidate is leading in the sixth seat and is likely to win. To make it worse for the BJP, it lost Nagpur graduates’ constituency which was its stronghold for decades. The constituency was represented by Union minister Nitin Gadkari as well as former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’ father, late Gangadharrao Fadnavis. Congress’ Abhijit Wanjari won the seat comfortably by defeating Sandeep Joshi, former Nagpur mayor and a close aide of Fadnavis for whom it was a prestigious election.
Three graduates’ constituencies from Aurangabad, Nagpur and Pune (in which graduates who had enrolled themselves as voters for these elections voted), two teachers’ constituencies from Pune and Amravati (in which teachers enrolled as voters) and local bodies constituency in Dhule-Nandurbar (which has elected representatives in local government bodies voted) went to polls on November 1. Out of six seats, four are bagged by the MVA. An independent candidate, Kiran Sarnaik, is leading in Amravati teachers’ constituency. The result in the constituency is not announced yet. Of these seats, Nagpur and Pune seats were considered a stronghold of the BJP. The defeat in Nagpur, the hometown of both Fadnavis and Gadkari, is considered significant for the party.
All the pre-poll arithmetic, organisational strength, meticulous campaign and the party’s stronghold did not help BJP candidate Sandip Joshi as he lost to Abhijit Wanjari (Congress) by 18,910 votes. This is for the first time a candidate from BJP or its previous avatar, Jansangh, is defeated in this constituency since its inception.
A sizable section within the BJP, on conditions of anonymity, pointed out that Nitin Gadkari group didn’t work whole-heartedly for Joshi, as the sitting legislator from the constituency, Anil Sole, a protégé of Gadkari, was replaced by Sandip Joshi at the eleventh hour. Joshi had worked as chief election co-ordinator for Fadnavis in his Assembly elections from Nagpur south-west assembly constituency and the former chief minister made it a prestige issue to get Joshi the ticket and his victory.
However, neither Fadnavis nor Joshi succeeded to convince the rank and file the reasons for the denial of ticket to Sole, an ex-college teacher. Moreover, Sole, who knows the constituency well as a sitting MLC and being a campaigner for Gadkari when he represented the region, was not visible during the campaign. He was even not entrusted any election responsibility during the campaign. Besides, Wanjari of Congress also managed to polarise the OBC voters against Joshi, a Brahmin candidate.
Both Fadnavis and Gadkari were camping in Nagpur for a week to campaign for Joshi.
Sole, however, said that the defeat of the BJP candidate was shocking for them. “Late announcement of the candidate may be one of the reasons. Anyway, we will certainly analyse the reasons and consolidate our base in the constituency in next elections,” he said.
Nagpur city BJP chief and party legislator, Pravin Datke said that they could not guess the undercurrent among the voters this time. “The Congress candidate succeeded to polarise the OBC votes against us and it led to the defeat,” he added.
The defeats of Pune and Nagpur Graduate Constituencies were an outburst of rank and file of the BJP against the two top BJP leaders of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis and the state BJP chief Chandrakantdada Patil, who have marginalised party leaders, like union minister Nitin Gadkari, Eknath Khadse, Vinod Tawde and Sudhir Mungantiwar said Dilip Deodhar, along-time RSS observer, based in Nagpur.
The former editor of Tarun Bharat, the mouthpiece of RSS, Vinod Deshmukh, felt that the entire election was polarised on caste-basis. “In Nagpur, the election was virtually Joshi versus OBC,” he pointed out and claimed that even some Congress leaders, including a cabinet minister, openly said during the election campaign that why people should vote for Joshi, a Brahmin, and appealed to vote for Wanjani, an OBC. Moreover, delay in announcing the candidate by the BJP was another reason for the defeat of Joshi, who could not cover all the six districts in a short period of 20 days. On the other hand, the Congress had given a node for the candidature of Wanjari two years ago, Deshmukh further pointed out.
In 2014 elections, Sole of BJP had defeated Baban Taywade of Congress with a margin of 31,259 votes. From 1988 to 2014, the constituency was represented by BJP’s Nitin Gadkari, who later won the Lok Sabha polls from Nagpur, to become Union Transport Minister in the Narendra Modi-led NDA Government at the Centre. Gadkari had emerged victorious from Graduates’ constituency for five times in a row. Before Gadkari, Gangadharrao Fadnavis, father of Devendra Fadnavis was elected from the constituency as Jansangh initially and later as BJP nominee. Following the death of sitting member Gangadharrao Fadnavis, the vacancy was caused and Gadkari was elected in 1988.
Both Pune seats were bagged by NCP (Arun Lad in graduates’ constituency) and Congress (Jayant Asgaonkar in teachers’ constituency) defeating BJP candidates on their turf.
NCP’s Satish Chavan won from the Aurangabad graduate constituency for the third time in a row. He defeated BJP’s Shirish Boralkar.
The lone seat the BJP won was Dhule-Nandurbar local bodies constituency. Party candidate Amrish Patel defeated Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi’s Abhijit Patil by 234 votes. Patel polled 332 votes, while Patil got 98 votes. Congress leaders expressed surprise over defeat as MVA has 213 members in local bodies, while BJP’s strength is 199. Patel had changed sides to join BJP by quitting Congress ahead of Assembly polls last year.
In Amravati teachers ‘constituency, independent candidate Kiran Sarnaik of Washim was ahead of his nearest rivals Shrikant Deshpande of Shiv Sena with a comfortable majority.
Thursday results are seen as a significant victory for the ruling MVA which has announced to contest all the elections including that to the local bodies together in the future.
Ruling party leaders said it is a token of the acceptance of the leadership of MVA. “BJP has been decimated in 24 districts in the state during the council elections which were fought directly from the people. This is ‘Maharashtra Express’ of MVA,” said former chief minister, public works department minister and Congress leader Ashok Chavan.
“The results are not as per our expectations as we were expecting more seats to win. We miscalculated the combined power of the three ruling parties under MVA,” said the leader of Opposition and former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi’s (MVA) candidate Arun Lad’s victory in the elections to the Pune graduate constituency on Friday has brought much confidence to the MVA camp - leaders and workers - and has forced the BJP on the backfoot.
Chandrakant Patil, BJP Mumbai’s unit president, who earlier represented this constituency, said, “Three parties come together and contested against a single party. Shiv Sena is helping the Congress and NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) but is getting nothing in return. Sena must think about it.”
NCP leader Ajit Pawar said, “The victory of Arun Lad is the answer to the Opposition party leaders making allegations. Now it is proved that graduate voters also support the MVA.”
Former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “We failed to estimate the power of the three parties unitedly.” BJP’s member of Parliament (MP) Girish Bapat accepted the defeat of the BJP candidate and said, “We must do an analysis.”
NCP leader Sharad Pawar said, “The results show that the citizens are expressing confidence in the MVA. The climate is changing in the state.”
