BJP trounces Cong in Vidarbha

The ruling Mahayuti alliance bagged 49 seats, while the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) managed a win in just 13 seats

Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which suffered a major setback in Vidarbha in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, succeeded in wresting control of the region from the Congress by winning 39 of its 62 assembly seats. The ruling Mahayuti alliance together bagged 49 seats, while the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) managed a win in just 13 seats.

BJP trounces Cong in Vidarbha

A Congress bastion for several decades, the BJP started making inroads in Vidarbha in the 1990s and has established a formidable presence in the past two decades. Being an agrarian region, distress among cotton and soyabean farmers comprised a major issue in the region in this election. Recognising this, the MVA in its poll manifesto promised to waive off farm loans and fix minimum support prices for staple crops.

The Congress and the BJP were locked in a direct contest in at least 35 of the 62 constituencies in Vidarbha. After winning five of the seven seats during the Lok Sabha polls held in June, Congress was hoping to win at least 30 seats from this region alone. But it won just nine seats, down from its 2019 tally of 15 seats and 2014 tally of 10 seats. Its alliance partner NCP (SP) was completely decimated, failing to even a single seat in the region for the first time since its formation in 1999. The BJP, on the other hand, improved its 2019 tally of 29 seats by bagging 10 additional seats.

Vidarbha is home to several key leaders from both the BJP as well as the Congress. Notable winners from the BJP included deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who secured his sixth term by defeating Praful Gudadhe-Patil from Congress in Nagpur South-West by a margin of 39,710 votes. State BJP chief Chandrasekhar Bawankule successfully reclaimed the Kamptee seat after being denied a ticket in 2019, while in Aheri, NCP candidate Dharmababa Atram triumphed over his daughter, Bhagyashree Atram, who contested on an NCP (SP) ticket.

Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole, one of the top contenders for the CM’s post in the MVA, won from Sakoli by a margin of just 208 votes, while leader of opposition in the legislative assembly Vijay Wadettiwar won from Brahmapuri with a margin of 14,088 votes.

Prahar Party chief Bachchu Kadu, who had claimed that his role would be pivotal in forming the new government, suffered a humiliating defeat in Achalpur. He finished third in a triangular contest, behind the BJP candidate and winner Pravind Tayade and Congress’s Bablu Deshmukh.