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Maharashtra mixed bag: BJP loses 30-yr bastion Kasba Peth to MVA, holds on to Chinchwad

BJP’s Hemant Rasane loses Kasba Peth, a seat the party had since 1995, to Congress’s Ravindra Dhangekar. MVA blames rebel candidate for Chinchwad loss. 

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Mumbai: The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has wrested the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bastion Kasba Peth in a stunning upset, but the latter managed to retain Chinchwad.   

Congress candidate Ravindra Dhangekar beat the BJP’s Hemant Rasane by a margin of nearly 11,000 votes in Kasba Peth, results for last month’s bypolls — announced Thursday — showed. The seat had been with the BJP for more than three decades.

However, the MVA — comprising the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the Congress, and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — lost the Chinchwad assembly seat to the BJP. The development is being primarily attributed by the MVA to a rebel Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate cutting into the alliance’s votes.

In Chinchwad, the BJP’s Ashwini Jagtap, widow of MLA Laxman Jagtap, won with a margin of over 36,000 votes.

Bye-elections for the two seats were necessitated by the passing of the two sitting BJP MLAs: Jagtap (Chinchwad) and Mukta Tilak (Kasba Peth).

For the MVA, which suffered a massive setback last year when its government fell following a rebellion in the Shiv Sena, the Kasba Peth victory comes as a massive shot in the arm. 

Up until now, the seat was considered a BJP stronghold, having been with the party since 1995 — BJP’s Girish Bapat represented the seat for five terms until 2019, when Tilak won the seat.

The victory comes close on the heels of another setback for the MVA — last week, the Election Commission officially recognised the faction led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde as the real Shiv Sena, allotting the party’s ‘bow and arrow’ symbol to it. 

With assembly elections just over a year away, the elections are significant, with the ruling Sena-BJP government using its top state leaders — including Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis — for campaigning. 

Both Shinde and Fadnavis camped in Pune for 4-5 days before the Sunday election.

Congress Legislative Party leader Balasaheb Thorat called it a “vote against the BJP”. “Secondly, the candidate was good too,” he told ThePrint.

NCP state chief Jayant Patil said the results prove that “people have rejected BJP and Shinde combine”. 

“Kasba people have also rejected BJP which held the seat for many years. We are happy that Dhangekar won,” he said.

The victory, said Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray, was crucial for democracy. 

“After 28 years we have won this seat. So, it’s a big boost,” he told ThePrint.

BJP leader and Ghatkopar West MLA Ram Kadam said the party will “introspect” on why they lost.

“In elections, as in politics, you win some and lose some. Winning is a big responsibility.  We’ll introspect on why we lost (in Kasba Peth),” he told ThePrint.


Also Read: After symbol loss, Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders tour state to ‘reassure ground cadre’


Lessons for both BJP and MVA

The Kasba Peth and Chinchwad bypolls seemingly hold lessons for both the BJP and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena combine, as well as the MVA. 

While the BJP won Chinchwad, MVA leaders claim this could largely be attributed to rebel Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Kalate’s decision to fight the elections independently. 

Kalate was expecting a ticket as the official MVA candidate but he rebelled after the NCP decided to field its candidate Nana Kate.

As the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as well as assembly election approach, the Chinchwad loss could show how crucial it would be for the MVA to hold its flock together. 

Admitting that the loss was primarily because of Kalate’s decision to fight as an independent, NCP state chief Jayant Patil accused the BJP of helping him. “He ate into our votes,” Patil said.

NCP leader Ajit Pawar said that the results could have been completely different if Kalate hadn’t fought as an independent.

“Until the last minute, we had two candidates — Nana Kate and Rahul Kalate. And a combined MVA decided to go with Nana Kate,” Pawar told ThePrint. “In the 2019 assembly polls, Kalate got 1 lakh plus with support of the Congress and the NCP. (This time) He became overconfident and fought as an independent. Now he has realised how much he can actually poll.” 

Some leaders, like the Congress’s Vishwajeet Kadam, believe that BJP leader Ashwini Jagtap got sympathy votes.  

“Indian people are sympathetic towards relatives of those who die. In this case, hence, sympathy votes went to Jagtap. But we will assess what went wrong in Chinchwad.”

He called the MVA victory in Kasba Peth an answer to the “misuse of power” by the state and central government. 

“The way the misuse of power is going on, this has not gone down well with the common man. The Congress and the MVA worked very hard,” he said.

“But candidate (Dhangekar) himself is very good and has a good connection with local people,” Kadam added. 

(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)


Also Read: Can Shinde Sena issue whip to Thackeray faction? ‘Legally incomprehensible, can’t wish MLAs away’


 

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