Journalism of Courage
Advertisement
Premium

Maharashtra elections results: BJP’s Jagtap wins Chinchwad seat with record margin of votes

In Bhosari, wrestler Mahesh Landge, the sitting MLA, scores hat-trick of wins

Ajit Pawar NCP MaharashtraNCP (Ajit Pawar) supporters celebrate at Bhigwan Chowk in Baramati on Saturday. (PTI Photo)

BJP candidates, like elsewhere in Maharashtra, put up a spectacular celebration in the industrial city of Pimpri-Chinchwad as, contrary to expectations of a tight finish, they witnessed a literal cakewalk, winning with a huge margin of votes.

Candidates of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, which is also part of the Mahayuti like BJP, recorded oustanding performances, securing their seats with a big margin of votes in Pimpri and neighbouring Maval seats in the Pune rural area.

In fact, in the Chinchwad Assembly seat, BJP candidate Shankar Jagtap created a new record on the Assembly poll turf of Pimpri-Chinchwad as he won by a margin of over 1 lakh votes against NCP (SP) candidate Rahul Kalate.

While Shankar Jagtap notched up 2,35, 323 votes, his rival Rahul Kalate had to remain content with 1,31, 458 votes. Jagtap, who was contesting his first assembly election, won by a margin of 1,03,865.

Since the constituency came into being in 2009, the Jagtap family has maintained its supremacy over it.

His elder brother Laxman Jagtap won the seat for three consecutive terms.

After Laxman’s death, his wife Ashwini Jagtap won the seat in the bypoll in 2023 and now Shankar Jagtap has won the seat.

Story continues below this ad

Political anaylst Avinash Chilekar said: “Shankar Jagtap has a set a new record. In Pimpri-Chinchwad assembly poll history, no candidate has won by such a huge margin of votes.”

Rahul Kalate, who contested the Assembly poll unsuccessfully for the third time, was banking heavily on the Sharad Pawar rally which had drawn a lot of attention during the campaigning. However, his associates said there was a delay in announcing his candidature, which gave him less time to campaign and reach out to the voters.

In Bhosari Assembly seat, it was expected that sitting MLA Mahesh Landge would be locked in a close fight with Ajit Gavhane of the Sharad Pawar-led NCP(SP).

However, Landge, the popular wrestler from Bhosari, romped home for the third consecutive time with a margin of 63,275 votes.

Story continues below this ad

While Landge secured 2,13, 624 votes, his rival Gavhane could muster 149,859 votes. Gavhane was contesting his first Assembly election.

Like Landge, Gavhane’s candidature was also announced at the last minute as both NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT) had disagreed over who would contest the seats.

Gavhane was with the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, heading the Pimpri-Chinchwad unit of the party but resigned on the eve of the election.

Easy finish in Pimpri reserved seat

In Pimpri reserved seat, sitting NCP MLA Anna Bansode, who had braved strong oppostion from corporators of his former party, won by a comfortable margin of 35, 624 votes.

Story continues below this ad

While Bansode secured 1,09,239 votes, his rival Sulakshna Shilwant-Dhar got 72,235 votes. The Shiv Sena (UBT) had tried to get the seat, however, the NCP (SP) thwarted its attempts.

The Sena leaders said they had told the NCP (SP) leaders that there was strong anger against the sitting MLA due to poor performance in the last five years and therefore a strong candidate needed to be fielded.

“We made an effort to get the seat. We wanted to field Gautam Chabukswar who had already once won one seat. But we could not get the seat,” Sanjay Raut, spokesperson of the Shiv Sena (UBT) told this paper.

‘Weren’t sure victory margin will be so huge’

Yogesh Behl, president of the Pimpri-Chinchwad unit of NCP said: “All Mahayuti candidates put on a stellar show. We knew they will win but were not sure the victory margin would be so huge.”

Story continues below this ad

Behl said there were several factors which contributed to the victory of Mahayuti candidates. “The Ladki Bahin Yojana was one of the factors besides the several government steps in favour of farmers, the free-bus schemes, and free education for girls all helped us win a thumbs up from the voters ,” he said.

BJP leader Mahesh Kulkarni said: “The party had meticulously planned its strategy. Our cadre worked relentlessly, taking the government initiatives to the doorsteps of voters. The rallies held by our Mahayuti leaders also helped a great deal.”

In Maval seat too, sitting NCP MLA Sunil Shelke who faced strong oppostion from alliance partner BJP over his renomination won with a big margin of votes.

Shelke secured 1,91,255 votes while his rival Bapu Begde, an independent, managed 82,690 votes. Shelke won by a 1,08,565 votes.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories
Tags:
  • Bharatiya Janata Party Congress Maharashtra election result maharashtra elections
Edition
Install the Express App for
a better experience
Featured
Trending Topics
News
Multimedia
Follow Us
Tavleen Singh writesRevolution in the air
X