Premium
This is an archive article published on July 12, 2024

As Cong MLAs cross-vote, Mahayuti outdoes MVA; Pune’s Tilekar, Gorkhe emerge winners

Twelve candidates – nine from the ruling Mahayuti and three from the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi – are in the fray for 11 MLC seats.

maharashtra pollsThe voting for the 11 MLC seats started at 9 am Friday. (PTI)

AS WIDELY anticipated, all nine Mahayuti candidates notched a victory in the first round of counting votes for Maharashtra State Legislative Council polls. At the same time, speculations of Congress MLAs cross-voting also proved true as of the three MVA candidates, two won, which included Milind Narvekar of Sena (UBT) and one lost.

”We will check to see which MLAs cross-voted and will take action against them,” said Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe, as it emerged that at least seven to eight Congress MLAs had voted in favour of Mahayuti candidates. ”We thought four MLAs would cross-vote, but it is more than four. We will find out the exact number in a couple of days,” Londhe added.

NCP (Ajit Pawar) seemed to be the biggest beneficiary with two of their candidates receiving an additional five votes. ”We had 40 MLAs of our own besides the support from two independent candidates. However, we received five additional votes. I want to thank those who gave additional votes to our candidates,” said Dy CM Ajit Pawar. Winners from NCP included Shivajirao Gajre and Rajesh Vitekar. The five votes apparently belonged to Congress MLAs as some of them had been regular at NCP meetings.

Story continues below this ad

”I am very happy. This win is bigger than my Lok Sabha victory. A higher power supported us in this election. This is a trailer to the State Assembly election. Our MLAs have shown our opponents their place. I am proud of my MLAs,” said a jubilant Sunil Tatkare, state president of NCP.

Sena (UBT) candidate Milind Narvekar’s victory has apparently been possible because of his proximity to BJP leaders, sources said. Narvekar was fielded by Sena (UBT) on the last day of filing of nominations. From day one, the Sena was claiming that Narvekar would win. Videos of Narvekar shaking hands and interacting with BJP leaders had also gone viral.

MVA’s Jayant Patil of Peasants and Workers Party who was backed by NCP (SP) was the lone candidate who lost. He left the Legislature premises much before results were declared. ”Congress MLAs indulged in cross-voting,” he told ABP Majha, a Marathi news channel. ”BJP has resorted to its old tactics of using money to influence elections and it has succeeded again,” said NCP (SP) spokesperson Vidya Chavan.

Yogesh Tilekar of Pune was the first one to secure the 23 mandatory votes and win the day.

Story continues below this ad

Tilekar, BJP’s OBC face and former BJP MLA from Hadapsar, was elected in 2014 but lost to NCP’s Chetan Tupe in 2019 elections.

BJP candidate Amit Gorkhe who is from Pimpri-Chinchwad also won. Gorkhe, who is perceived as close to Dy CM Devendra Fadnavis, is a Matang community leader and runs a clutch of educational institutes in Pimpri-Chinchwad, while generally keeping himself away from BJP’s internal politics in the local unit.

Congress candidate Pradnya Satav, who was re-elected today, is the widow of Congress leader Rajiv Satav, and is known for her proximity to the Gandhi family.

Firebrand BJP leader Pankaja Munde who had recently lost the Beed Lok Sabha seat was also victorious. The Mundes including her cousin Dhananjay Munde and sister Pritam were seen at Vidhan Bhavan celebrating her victory. ”Several supporters have been waiting here since morning for results. It is a happy moment for all of us,” she said. Pankaja Munde has made it to the state legislature after five years.

Story continues below this ad

Another BJP candidate to emerge victorious was Dr Prinay Phuke who, like other party candidates, also secured 26 votes.

The BJP, with a strength of 103 MLAs besides 12 independents and small party MLAs, had fielded five candidates, all of whom received 26 votes. BJP also benefited by cross voting from Congress MLAs. ”Some people (the Opposition) were predicting cross-voting from our side, but we received votes not just from our own MLAs, but from MVA MLAs too,” said Dy CM Devendra Fadnavis after results were declared.

Sena had a strength of 37 MLAs besides 10 independents and two MLAs of Bachchu Kadu’s party, thus giving them the backing of 49 MLAs. Two of its candidates, Bhawana Gawli (25) and Kripal Tumane (24) collectively received 49 votes. Echoing the sentiments of Fadnavis, CM Eknath Shinde said, ”The Opposition’s claim of breaching our ranks has fallen flat. Their wickets have tumbled and they are in pain.”

 

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

Latest Comment
Post Comment
Read Comments
Advertisement
Loading Taboola...
Advertisement