Big blow for BJP, as MVA gains upper hand at Maharashtra Vidhan Parishad elections

The ruling BJP government has received a big blow as the Maha Vikas Aghadi candidate won Pune Graduates' constituency. On Thursday elections were held for the Pune Division Graduates' constituency, Nagpur Division Graduates' constituency, Aurangabad Division Graduates' constituency, Amravati Division Teachers' constituency, Pune Division Teachers' constituency and Dhule-Nandurbar Local Pune Division Teachers' constituency and Dhule-Nandurbar Local Bodies constituency. In Pune, Arun Lad of MVA won the Graduates' Constituency poll, defeating BJP candidate Sangram Deshmukh. Lad won the seat by 49,000 votes. While the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) registered a clear victory in the Dhule-Nandurbar Legislative Council byelection, the ruling tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi had the upper hand in four of the five teachers and graduates’ constituencies as the counting of votes began on Thursday.

The BJP’s candidate for Dhule-Nandurbar, Amrish Patel, won a thumping victory, snaring 332 of a total 434 votes cast. His nearest rival, the Congress’s Abhijeet Patil, could secure only 98 votes. While the counting for the five graduates and teachers’ constituency seats, of which three are graduates and the remaining are teachers’ constituencies — is under way, the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA has secured a clear lead in four of these seats.In the Nagpur graduates’ constituency seat, the MVA’s Abhijit Vanjari secured a lead of nearly 5,000 votes over his BJP rival. In the Aurangabad graduates’ constituency, the NCP’s Satish Chavan has secured a massive lead of over 17,000 votes against his BJP adversary, Satish Boralkar, and appears to be coasting to victory. In the Amravati teachers’ constituency, an Independent, Kiran Sarnaik, has secured a slender lead of less than 1,000 votes over the MVA’s Shrikant Deshpande.