After Kasba loss, BJP on course correction mode, gears up to retain other Pune seats

“We are introspecting the outcome of the by-election in the bastion of Kasba so that necessary steps would be taken to make correction,” BJP candidate Hemant Rasane said after his defeat to Congress’s Ravindra Dhangekar on Thursday.

Rasane lost by over 10,000 votes in the bypoll that was necessitated due to the death of sitting Kasba legislator Mukta Tilak. The Kasba seat had been a BJP bastion for 28 years and its loss is likely to rankle the party as it had won the seat with a massive margin of 28,196 votes in the previous election.

Accepting defeat, guardian minister Chandrakant Patil said, “We will work more and win the seat next time.”

The BJP is likely to get into election mode now and gear up for the 2024 Assembly elections. Though it won six of the eight Assembly seats in 2019, the BJP had won three seats by a narrow margin. In 2019, BJP’s Bhimrao Tapkir had won the Khadakwasla seat with a margin of 2,595 votes, beating Sachin Dodke of NCP. Sunil Kamble of BJP had defeated Congress leader Ramesh Bagawe by 5,012 votes in Pune Cantonment and Siddharth Shirole had made it to the Assembly by defeating Datta Bahirat of Congress by 5,124 votes in Shivajinagar.

Patil, who was elected from the Kothrud Assembly seat in 2019, had won with a margin of 25,495 votes by defeating Kishor Shinde of MNS. His victory margin was less than the 28,196 votes the BJP polled in the Kasba Assembly constituency.

“The BJP will have to put extra efforts in Shivajinagar, Pune Cantonment and Khadakwasla Assembly. There was unrest in Kothrud Assembly in 2019 after sitting legislator Medha Kulkarni was denied candidature by BJP for Patil but the voters stood by BJP then. If the voters decide to follow Kasba, the BJP will be in trouble,” said a BJP worker.

In Parvati, the BJP had won with a lead of 36,767 votes in 2019 but it cannot take the next elections casually here in the backdrop of the Kasba bypoll defeat.