Reduced vote share in Pune rings alarm bell for BJP in Pune Cantonment, Shivajinagar Assembly segments

The fall in number of votes comes in addition to the support from Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, NCP-led by Ajit Pawar, MNS of Raj Thackeray and RPI(A) led by Ramdas Athawale.

Thus, the victory margin for BJP also decreased tremendously from over three lakh in the previous two Lok Sabha elections riding on Modi wave to 1.23 lakh this election despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding an election rally for the party candidate.

Prominent leaders, including union ministers Nitin Gadkari, S Jaishankar, state leaders Devendra Fadanavis, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Vinod Tawade had campaigned for Mohol.

The Congress, on the other hand, led an aggressive election campaign with Rahul Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor holding rallies for Dhangekar. Alliance partners NCP (SP)-led by Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT) led by Uddhav Thackeray extended full support to Congress. The increased voter turnout had scared the once confident BJP of the outcome of the election.

“We got the lead not only from the Kothrud assembly segment but also from Kasba assembly segment from where the Congress candidate had won in byelection last year,” Mohol justified.

Another BJP leader said that the decrease in votes for BJP and increase in votes for Congress along with reduced victory margin is a cause of concern for the party, considering the Assembly elections a few months away.

There are six Assembly segments in Pune – Kasba, Pune Cantonment, Parvati, Kothrud, Shivajinagar and Vadgaonsheri, with BJP legislators representing in four, while alliance partner NCP in one as against the Congress in one Assembly segment.

The BJP overscored the Congress in five Assembly segments while the Congress got 13,300 more votes in Pune Cantonment Assembly segment which is currently represented by BJP legislator Sunil Kamble. It managed to get a small lead of 3,337 votes in Shivajinagar represented by party legislator Siddharth Shirole. The main contributor for BJP victory was Kothrud which gave it a lead of 74,257 votes and Parvati that gave it a lead of 28,997 votes. Vadgaonsheri Assembly represented by alliance partner NCP gave a lead of around 14,000 votes to BJP while it managed to get the same amount of lead from Kasba which it had lost last year in bypoll to Congress.

“We lost the Pune Lok sabha seat but our performance increased tremendously giving a push to the party cadre for improved performance in forthcoming Assembly elections,” said Congress leader Ramesh Iyer.

Votes in last three elections

Assembly-wise performance in Pune Lok Sabha