Mumbai: Graduate voters pushed the ruling Mahayuti out of all three graduates' constituencies in Maharashtra, handing the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi three of the five Legislative Council seats at stake after a count that ran close to 45 hours.
The closest fight was in Nagpur. The BJP's Sudhakar Kohale led the first-preference round with 61,215 votes against Congress's sitting MLC Abhijeet Wanjari on 57,052. Second preferences turned it around on Wednesday night. Wanjari finished on 67,231, Kohale on 63,960 — a margin of 3,271. Independent Nitesh Karale's 25,909 votes decided where the seat went.
"It is not always strength that wins you an election. Sometimes an idea works better. Shaktipeksha yukti shreshtha," Wanjari said after the result. Kohale blamed roughly 9,000 ballots on which voters wrote "2" instead of "1" against his name. "Casting votes in this manner is not healthy for democracy," he said.
This is the seat that gave the BJP Nitin Gadkari and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's father, Gangadharrao Fadnavis. The party held it for 58 years before losing it to Congress in 2020, and has now lost it twice running. State Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal said the BJP had been "trounced in the RSS headquarters".
In Pune graduates, NCP (SP)'s Harshada Deshmukh-Jadhav beat the BJP's Smita Jadhav by 9,928 votes, crossing the 1,13,095 quota in the 44th elimination round with 1,13,840 votes to Jadhav's 1,03,912. She is the first woman elected from that constituency.
Dr Pratapsinh Patil of the NCP (SP) took Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar graduates, ending three-term MLC Satish Chavan's 18-year hold on the seat.
The Mahayuti held both teachers' seats. In Pune teachers, the BJP's Kaustubh Gawade, 30, won with 23,117 votes against Shiv Sena-backed independent Sachin Sanap's 16,347, reclaiming the seat for the party after 18 years. In Amravati teachers, Shiv Sena's Kiran Sarnaik retained it with 16,663 votes against the Congress's Prof Aditi Pohare, clearing the 16,134 quota in the final round.
Turnout across the five seats was 72.96%. The blame game began within hours. "Shiv Sena did not give the expected cooperation in Pune and Nagpur," BJP spokesperson Navnath Ban said. "There was a complete lack of coordination on seat-sharing from day one," Shiv Sena's Anand Paranjpe said. Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule rejected the idea of a setback. "All five seats were earlier with the opposition. We had none," he said.
Terms of the sitting members end on December 6.