PUNE: Although Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Murlidhar Mohol won the Pune Lok Sabha (LS) seat, managing to get the lead in five out of six assembly segments, what is worrisome is that his lead dropped drastically as compared to the last two LS elections. He defeated Congress candidate Ravindra Dhangekar by a margin of only 1.23 lakh votes, the counting for which was completed on Tuesday.
As per the Election Commission of India (ECI) data, late MP Girish Bapat won by 3.24 lakh votes in the 2019 LS elections whereas the BJP’s former MP Anil Shirole won by 3.15 lakh votes in the 2014 LS polls.
Mohol said, “Victory is important. We won the seat and got the lead in most assembly segments.”
Whereas the BJP coordinator for all four LS constituencies in Pune district, Sandeep Khardekar, said, “It is true that our margin has come down but we will definitely cover this in the upcoming assembly election. There are various reasons behind the fall in margin.”
Khardekar went on to explain that during the last two elections, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) candidates garnered considerable votes but this time, they got marginal votes.
“At the same time, the narrative created by the opposition parties about the change in the Constitution and that BJP is against minorities resulted in a reduced vote share,” Khardekar said.
{{/usCountry}}“At the same time, the narrative created by the opposition parties about the change in the Constitution and that BJP is against minorities resulted in a reduced vote share,” Khardekar said.
{{/usCountry}}Interestingly, Mohol’s vote share was larger in five of the six assembly segments falling under the Pune parliamentary seat. The Pune LS seat comprises six assembly constituencies namely, Kothrud, Shivajinagar, Parvati, Kasba Peth, Parvati and Pune Cantonment. Except for the Pune Cantonment assembly segment where Dhangekar got 13,297 more votes, Mohol took the lead in all other assembly constituencies.
In Kothrud from where Mohol hails, he got a lead of 74,257 votes whereas in Parvati, he got a lead of 28,997 votes. In Kasba Peth, Mohol got a lead of 14,483 votes over Dhangekar while in Shivajinagar, he got 3,337 more votes than Dhangekar.