3 min readPuneOct 25, 2019 03:46 AM IST
First published on: Oct 25, 2019 at 03:27 AM IST
NCP chief Sharad Pawar addressed a campaign rally amid heavy rainfall on October 18 evening at Satara in western Maharashtra, where a Lok Sabha bypoll was held alongiwth the state Assembly elections on October 21. (Source: Twitter)
IN a huge embarrassment, BJP leader Udayanraje Bhosale on Friday lost the Satara Lok Sabha bypoll by 87,717 votes to NCP’s Sriniwas Patil.
Since the initial counting rounds itself, Bhosale trailed Patil, a former Sikkim governor and a retired IAS officer. Though initially the margin was less, it first ballooned to 10,000, then went up to 30,000 and finally hovered around the 80,000 mark. In all, Patil received 6,15,008 votes while Udayanraje managed 5,39,241.
“I accept the verdict of the kings of democracy… the kings are the people who have ruled against me. I have worked selflessly for 20 to 25 years for the people of Satara, I also have a life… Now, I will keep quiet,” a stunned Bhosale said.
NCP leaders were quick to credit the victory to party chief Sharad Pawar, whose rally in pouring rain in Satara has became much-talked about in these elections.
The photographs of the rally, where a drenched Pawar addresses a rally, had gone viral, rustling up five lakh hits in first one hour.
Pawar, however, downplayed the event at a press conference on Thursday. “It was raining and some 50,000 people were waiting to hear me and had turned their chairs into umbrellas… I couldn’t have let them down. I don’t want to get into how it viral it became,” he said.
The NCP chief was also instrumental in picking his long-time friend Patil for the seat after senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan refused to contest from the constituency. Though the seat belonged to NCP as part of the seat sharing arrangement, the party had offered it to ally Congress provided Chavan is fielded.
The Satara seat had fallen vacant after Bhosale resigned three months after being elected MP in May. In the Lok Sabha polls, his margin of victory had reduced drastically from 3.55 lakh votes in 2014 to 1.50 lakh votes. He had then decided to join BJP. He was the only leader from Maharashtra whose joined the party at an event in New Delhi in the presence of BJP chief Amit Shah.
Udayanraje’s supporters claimed he had been promised a Rajya Sabha seat in case the Satara verdict went against him. “We are confident Udayanraje will still become an MP…,” said Milind Gaikwad, a supporter.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar addressed a campaign rally amid heavy rainfall on October 18 evening at Satara in western Maharashtra, where a Lok Sabha bypoll was held alongiwth the state Assembly elections on October 21. (Source: Twitter)
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