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Journalism of Courage
NAGPUR, JUNE 20: The ruling Congress suffered a major setback when its candidate, Anwar Wahid Khan, was defeated in the State Legislative Council elections from Amravati local-self government constituency on Monday. On the other hand, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) nominee and sitting legislator, Ramdas Tadas, retained the seat from the Chandrapur-Wardha-Gadchiroli local-self government constituency.
The election results of Amravati is quite surprising in the political circle here as the Congress-NCP and their allies enjoy comfortable majority in the constituency.
Former minister and president of Amravati district BJP, Jagdish Gupta, defeated Khan with a margin of only 17 votes. Gupta polled 187 while Khan secured 170 votes in the elections. However, Gupta preferred to contest the elections as an independent.
This is for first time that the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested the seat from Congress. Minister of State for Finance, Vashudhatai Deshmukh, represented the seat in last elections. She resigned from the membership as soon as she was elected from Achalpur Assembly constituency in the district in October last.
Reacting to the result, senior BJP member and MLA, Arun Adsad, described it as a defeat of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. The Chief Minister and about a half-a-dozen State ministers campaigned for Khan last fortnight. Some of them even camped there till the polling. "The victory of Gupta is the result of team work of the party," Adsad further added.
The Congress candidate was supported by the RPI and the NCP. Ganesh Rai, the NCP nominee, withdrew his nomination at the eleventh hour and extended his support to Khan. On the other hand, Shiv Sena candidate, Balasaheb Hingnikar, supported Gupta and ensured his victory.
The political observers here feel that the defeat of the Congress candidate was a result of over-confidence of the party while it was a sweet shock for State BJP chief, Pandurang Phundkar, who took the rein of the organisation just a fortnight back.
In Chandrapur-Wardha-Gadchiroli constituency, Ramdas Tadas defeated his nearest BJP rival, Vijay Raut, with a comfortable margin. Tadas polled 355 votes while Raut got only 183 votes. The independent candidate, Keshav Nalamwar, owner of a Chandrapur-based Marathi daily, forfeited his deposit. He secured only 13 votes.
In both the constituencies, the Congress and the NCP made an electoral understanding. The Congress left the Chandrapur-Wardha-Gadchiroli seat to the NCP while the NCP extended its support to the Congress nominee in Amravati constituency.
The election was held on June 17 and the counting of votes began this morning. The results were announced by afternoon.
