Mumbai: Poll results in Maharashtra’s Nanded led to much drama over both vote-counting and the electorate’s preferences.
The Nanded Lok Sabha constituency, after a round of complaints and recounting, was declared as won by Ravindra Chavan, a leader of the Congress which is part of the state’s opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance. However, all six assembly segments in Nanded were won by the Mahayuti alliance.
The results have caused many to wonder how people voted differently in the Nanded Lok Sabha bypoll and the elections to assembly constituencies held the same day, 20 November.
According to data from the Election Commission, the Congress altogether got 4.27 lakh votes in the six assembly seats under Nanded, while it got 5.87 lakh votes in the bypoll for the Lok Sabha seat.
Gurdeep Singh Sappal, a member of the Congress working committee, pointed out that even though the voters were the same and the polls held at the same time, the Congress had polled 1.6 lakh more votes for Nanded Lok Sabha seat.
“It means that an average of 26,500 Congress voters voted against the party in each of these six assembly seats! But the question remains why did one-fourth of Congress voters go with Mahayuti at the same time? Even die-hard BJP voters will not agree that these one-fourth Congress voters like the trio of Shinde-Fadnavis-Ajit more than they like PM Modi and that’s why they went with Mahayuti immediately after voting for the Congress in the Lok Sabha seat,” he said in a post on X.
The Mahayuti includes the BJP, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP.
Speaking to ThePrint, a Congress leader said on the condition of anonymity: “Does this mean that people did not want (PM Narendra) Modi at the Centre and wanted Shinde-(Devendra) Fadnavis in the state? How is that possible? Are they trying to imply Modi is not popular anymore and (former CM and BJP leader) Fadnavis is more popular? We will probe the election results. This entire election needs to be investigated.”
A BJP functionary refuted allegations of irregularities in the poll process. “The MVA is crying over EVMs because they lost. What happened then in Jharkhand? How is the EVM working fine there? And it happens. People vote differently especially if there is a sympathy factor involved,” he said.
On Saturday, the JMM-led INDIA bloc, which includes the Congress, stormed back to power in Jharkhand.
The Nanded bypoll was necessitated because of the demise of Vasantrao Chavan, a Congress candidate who had won the polls earlier this year against BJP’s sitting MP Prataprao Chikhalikar.
Chavan died in August and the bypoll was announced for his seat. The Congress gave the ticket to his son Ravindra Vasantrao Chavan, who was the official MVA candidate.
Political analyst Abhay Deshpande explained the possible sympathy factor. “This result is not unusual. It is not that suddenly people like Fadnavis over Modi. Since there was a sympathy wave for Ravindra Chavan, people voted for him. And this happens. That is why in such scenarios, parties give the ticket to the kin of the deceased so that people feel sympathetic towards the candidate,” he told ThePrint.
Nanded Lok Sabha bypoll
In a nail-biting finish, Ravindra Chavan won the Nanded Lok Sabha bypoll against BJP’s Santukrao Hambarde by a slim margin of 1,457 votes.
But this victory was finalised around 10 pm Saturday after the results were recounted.
Earlier, it had been announced that Hambarde had won the seat after counting of all rounds, after which the Congress demanded a recount.
“The news that Hambarde had won started getting circulated on social media and people started celebrating,” a Congress functionary from Nanded told ThePrint.
“Then, a recount of postal ballots and all rounds was done and Chavan got a lead of 700-odd votes around 8 pm,” said the functionary.
Then Hamarde took objection and demanded recounting. After the second recount was done by 10 pm, Ravindra Chavan was declared the winner.
“The delay was because counting was going on and the observer had to verify it and this is all part of the process,” Chavan told the media post the results.
He had polled 586,788 votes, including 8,524 postal votes, against 585,331 votes bagged by Hambarde.
Chavan will, however, be the lone warrior of the MVA in Nanded as all assembly constituencies in the district have been won by the Mahayuti.
“It means people have shown their love for the Chavan family and the Congress and they want us to represent them in the Lok Sabha,” Chavan said. “The way Vasantrao Chavan stood for the Congress in tough times and won the seat against all odds, people have reposted their faith in the family,” he added.
In Bhokar, BJP’s Sreejaya Chavan defeated Congress’s Tirupati Kadam. Nanded North and Nanded South went to Shinde-led Shiv Sena’s Balaji Devidasrao Kalyankar and Anand Shankar Tidke, who defeated Congress candidates Abdul Sattar Gafoor and Mohanrao Hambarde, respectively.
In Naigaon, BJP’s Rajesh Pawar defeated Congress’s Meenal Patil Khatgaonkar, while in Deglur (SC), BJP’s Jitesh Antapurkar scored a victory over Congress’s Nivrutti Kamble. In Mukhed, BJP’s Tushar Rathod defeated Congress’s Patil Hanmantrao.
Nanded is reflective of what happened in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, when the MVA swept most seats in Maharashtra, but six months later, in the assembly election, the ruling Mahayuti has retained power.
After what has happened in the state in the last five years, the first vote was for anti-incumbency, the second in favour of stability.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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