Pune: Barne magic in Maval; Jagtap eats humble pie

So overwhelming was the support for the saffron alliance that Jagtap could not overtake Barne even in one round.

THE way he campaigned, the way he spoke while addressing the crowd and the way he gave effect to his political machinations, it was nothing but what political pundits called sheer arrogance on display, day in and day out.

Not stopping at that, he “contemptuously” disregarded any suggestions and advice for his own electoral good even by the likes of Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar. And in the end, Laxman Jagtap, who is often described as ‘TDR king’ in Pimpri-Chinchwad, had his “massive ego” punctured by Shrirang Barne of the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance in Maval.

In what was widely believed to be a closely fought contest petered out into a completely one-sided affair as Barne won a massive margin of 1.57 lakh votes. Before the counting took place, Barne was expecting that he would win by 70,000 votes while Jagtap believed that he would win by one lakh votes. Both were proved wrong.

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While Barne notched up 5,12,226 votes Jagtap could muster only 3,54,829 votes – a far cry from his claim of crossing the five-lakh mark. NCP’s Rahul Narvekar, who was not expected to cross the one-lakh mark, sprang a surprise by bagging 1,82,293 votes. AAP’s Maruti Bhapkar could secure only 30,566 votes.

Right from the first round — at Balewadi counting centre, Barne, fondly addressed as ‘Appa’, was leading over Jagtap, his nearest rival by 616 votes. In the second round, the lead came down to 216 votes. The initial two rounds lived up to the expectations of a tough contest in Maval. However, Barne’s lead kept on growing by the end of every round.

So overwhelming was the support for the saffron alliance that Jagtap could not overtake Barne even in one round.

Jagtap was relying heavily on the polling in Chinchwad and Pimpri assembly constituencies. However, in both the constituencies, Barne outsmarted and outpolled Jagtap. In Chinchwad assembly constituency, the voting was 2.49 lakh. Out of this, Barne polled 1.34 votes while Jagtap managed 67,000 votes. In Pimpri assembly constituency, 1.79 lakh people voted. Of this, Barne polled 88,000 and Jagtap 39,000.

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“In both these constituencies, Jagtap was expecting a massive lead. However, Barne has prevailed all the way here,” said MNS leader Sarang Kamtekar, a close associate of Jagtap.
In victory, Barne betrayed no trace of arrogance but did not forget to take a dig at Jagtap without taking his name. “Those who thought money power would win them the election have been blown away.

Their big ego has been clearly battered,” said Barne. “I have fought national elections and therefore issues of national importance in my constituency will get priority,” he said. Barne also said the Modi factor played a major role in his victory.

On the issue of illegal constructions, Barne said he would persuade the Central Government to prevail upon the state government to regularise the structures of the common man. Like Barne, several political leaders and even party workers openly voice their views, attributing Jagtap’s defeat to his “arrogant” style of functioning. “Had Jagtap contested on an NCP ticket, he would have fared much better. He defied even Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar, which was the starting point of his defeat,” said a senior NCP leader.

Usually accessible, Jagtap however remained unavailable through the day. Several calls to his cell went unanswered. However, Jagtap put on a brave front in the evening when his supporters gathered at his Pimple Gurav residence. “I take this defeat in my stride. From tomorrow morning, I will start working…,” he told glum-faced supporters.

Manoj Dattatrye More

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

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