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How Kolhe beat Ajit Pawar’s challenge in Shirur
Kolhe, with a margin of over 1.40 lakh votes emerged victorious from Shirur, which attracted attention throughout the campaign
The Shirur Lok Sabha constituency with a mix of rural and urban population backed NCP (SP) candidate Amol Kolhe for the second consecutive term over Shivajirao Adhalrao of NCP.
Kolhe, with a margin of over 1.40 lakh votes emerged victorious from Shirur, which attracted attention throughout the campaign.
Accordingly political observers, Kolhe since the beginning of his campaign successfully set the narrative against the opposition candidate and skillfully flagged core issues like farmers’ distress, the centre’s policies about the ban on onion export, lack of adequate price for agricultural produce, rising unemployment and inflation.
The factors like the pending plights of farmers and farm labourers have remained unaddressed. The steep decline in onion prices had a devastating effect on the farmers. The poor rates for cotton, onion and soybean crops for farmers were key issues. The promising on-paper government schemes with poor implementation. The GST on farm equipment and farm products became game changers.
As NCP president Ajit Pawar publicly declared that he would defeat Kolhe at any cost during the poll campaign, observers said it ultimately helped the latter. Kolhe accepted the challenge while avoiding being aggressive. It was seen among voters that Kolhe is being humble despite Pawar targeting him with an acerbic tone.
“My victory in Shirur is a victory of people, who voted for me. The win is also for loyalty,” said Kolhe after winning the election.
It was seen that Ajit Pawar held a grudge against Kolhe because he refused to go with him when he decided to join hands with the BJP and form the Mahayuti government.
Kolhe preferred to remain with his mentor Sharad Pawar and reiterated this as his “loyalty” during the campaign.
Ajit Pawar and Adhalrao Patil had been raking up the issue of Kolhe’s absence in the constituency during his five-year term due to his acting assignments. They claimed that it has heavily impacted the development of the constituency. Kolhe was narrating his track record as an active and performing MP and his award as Best Parliamentarian to counter criticism.
Kolhe outsmarted Adhalrao when the former claimed that the latter was only worried about his business enterprises and ignored the constituency. He also claimed that Patil asked 60-70 questions related to the defence ministry not to his constituency and was concerned about purchasing software and getting contracts from the ministry. This changed the minds of voters and the intentions of Patil as a people leader were in question.
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Maval voters remained with Sena
Mahayuti candidate, Shrirang Barne, on Tuesday, won the Maval Lok Sabha Constituency elections and achieved a hat-trick from the constituency as an easy cakewalk.
This was expected to happen from the day the Shiv Sena (UBT) failed to give a candidate who was a Sena party worker. The Maval constituency fight was between Barne, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) vs Sanjog Waghere, Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate.
Barne defeated Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Waghere by a margin of over 1 lakh votes with the former getting 661584 votes and Waghere standing second with 560896 votes.
