Girish Bapat wins Kasba Peth

With 54,982 votes,sitting MLA and BJP-Sena candidate Girish Bapat won the elections from Kasba Peth constituency. While Bapat won with a margin of over 8,000 votes,Bapat,who had earlier claimed 1.3 lakh votes,managed to reach up to 54,892 votes — less than half of what he had claimed. Commenting on the calculations gone wrong,Bapat said,“Claiming 1.3 lakh votes was our election strategy,but otherwise,our calculations varied by just two-three per cent. MNS claimed more number of votes than expected.” Commenting further on the MNS factor,Bapat said,“More than delimitation,it was the MNS that played the spoilsport. They claimed 30 per cent of our votes and 70 per cent of Congress votes in Kasba Peth constituency.”

Rohit Tilak,the young Congress-NCP candidate,also said to be a personal favourite of Rahul Gandhi,was looked upon as a major contender to challenge Bapat’s 15-year monopoly in Kasba Peth. Partially blaming the MNS for their loss,Tilak who bagged 46,728 votes said,“MNS is ahead of us by mere 92 votes and considering the fact that Ranjit Shirole had claimed 16,000 votes for the MNS from this constituency during the Lok Sabha Polls,the number has gone up by almost 30,000 this time. Even if 50 per cent of these voters came to us,we would have won the elections. Also,compared to Bapat or Ravindra Dhangekar of MNS who have been active in the constituency since long time,we got just 17 days to reach out to the masses.”

While Bapat and Tilak claim that Dhangekar ventured into their vote banks,Dhangekar with 46,820 votes,has been claiming that it was Tilak who affected his votes. “In the eastern parts of the constituency,where majority of the population lives in slums,we had expected a clear-cut majority. Unfortunately,maximum number of people from these areas voted for Tilak,which in turn pushed us behind Bapat,else we would have won.”