1 day Ago
PUNE: Most of the disgruntled Mahayuti politicians, who switched their loyalty after being impressed by MVA's successful performance in the recent Lok Sabha poll, have been knocked out of the race to the assembly. By a twist of fate, many MVA deserters manged to shine under the ruling alliance's banners, assembly poll results declared on Saturday show. The biggest names among the turncoats who lost the election include Harshvardhan Patil.
The former state cooperation minister left BJP and joined NCP (SP) upon realising that he was not going to get the ticket from Mahayuti for Indapur constituency. Once a political rival of the Sharad Pawar family, Harshvardhan buried the differences to get official nomination but was defeated, for third time, by NCP's incumbent MLA Datta Bharne. Similarly, a much-talked-about battle played out in Kolhapur's Kagal where Pawar had poached Samarjeetsinh Ghatge from BJP to field him against NCP's sitting MLA and cabinet minister Hasan Mushrif.
In a tightly fought contest, Mushrif trounced Ghatge by 11,581 votes. Another interesting fight was in Vidarbha region's Aheri seat where Bhagyashree Atram lost to her own father, Dharamaraobaba Atram, in an NCP vs NCP fight. A few months before the date of assembly poll was announced, Bhagyashree had changed her allegiance to senior Pawar's faction from the one led by latter's rebel nephew and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar.
Maharashtra Jharkhand Maharashtra Alliance View i Party View Seats: 288 Results Majority: 145 BJP+ 229 MVA 47 OTH 12 Results : 288 / 288 BJP+ WON Jharkhand Alliance View i Party View Seats: 81 Results Majority: 41 INDIA 56 NDA 24 OTH 1 Results : 81 / 81 INDIA WON Source: PValue Among Mahayuti partners, NCP inducted MLA Zeeshan Siddique from Congress and fielded him from Mumbai's Vandre East. Zeeshan, son of the late Baba Sidduque who was recently shot dead, failed to save his bastion from Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Varun Sardesai. However, not all the turncoats faced defeat.
In Bhor assembly seat, three-time Congress MLA Sangram Thopte was defeated by Shankar Mandekar, who recently shifted from Shiv Sena (UBT) to NCP. In the parliamentary election held earlier this year, MVA outnumbered Mahayuti by winning 30 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats. The results prompted many from both alliances to switch sides.
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