Maharashtra bypoll results lesson for both BJP and MVA, say political observers

The results of bypolls to two Assembly seats in Maharashtras Pune district serve as a lesson to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party BJP to get its act together and introspect and to the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi MVA to unite for better electoral prospects political observers feelTwo Assembly segments in Pune district Kasba Peth and Chinchwad voted on February 26 in bypolls necessitated due to the death of sitting BJP MLAs Mukta Tilak and Laxman Jagtap respectivelyIn the results declared on Thursday the Kasba bypoll was won by the Congress a constituent of the MVA Congress candidate Ravindra Dhangekar defeated BJPs Hemant Rasane to win this seat which had been with the BJP since 1995However BJP candidate Ashwini Jagtap wife of late MLA Laxman Jagtap won the Chinchwad Assembly constituency She defeated Vitthal alias Nana Kate of the Nationalist Congress Party NCPTalking to PTI senior Congress leader Ratnakar Mahajan said the Kasba bypoll result inspires the MVA which comprises the Congress NCP and Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray to stay unitedThe result is peoples verdict on local and state issues There is nothing more to read into it he saidAlso Read Maharashtra bypolls BJP loses Kasba Assembly seat to CongressIt also shows that common voters are devoid of caste and religious considerations and are concerned about contemporary issues like price rise and unemployment that they have to deal with in their daily life he saidThere is a misconception that Kasba is a Brahmindominated constituency Mahajan said adding that there are 13 per cent Brahmin voters while 60 per cent belong to the Other Backward Classes OBCBJP leader Girish Bapat won five times from Kasba because of his connect with the masses and not due to his caste and there was no leader in the Congress to counter him Mahajan saidThere is no logic in thinking that the BJP lost because members from the Lokmanya Tilaks family were ignored Late Mukta Tilak who represented the constituency belonged to the family Congress candidate Rohit Tilak who also belongs to the same family was defeated from this Assembly segment twice he addedOn the Chinchwad seat the Congress leader said this constituency is a mix of outsider and local population because it is an industrial areaSitting MLA Laxman Jagtap was a local leader with strong mass connect A builder by profession he was with the NCP till 2014 and shifted to the BJP Rahul Kalate the independent candidate who finished third in the Chinchwad bypoll was earlier with the NCP and later with the Shiv Sena Former CM Uddhav Thackeray personally intervened to persuade him to withdraw from the race but Kalate did not budge he saidMahajan said sympathy factor worked for Ashwini Jagtap in Chinchwad but it did not work in Kasba even as sitting Pune MP Girish Bapat who is critically ill had to step out to campaign for his party and for casting his voteSenior BJP leader Madhav Bhandari termed his partys defeat in Kasba Peth as an accidentNo doubt we will introspect on where we went wrong before we win back the constituency in 2024 he saidNCP leader Jitendra Awhad felt the Kasba election result showed that people shouldnt be taken for grantedThey only want a platform to express themselves he saidHe said people expressed their anger over the sale and purchase of their votesThe Kasba bypoll result is also a warning to the corporators who plan to shift to the ruling party in the civic polls scheduled later this year he saidAwhad said if Rahul Kalate was not in the fray in Chinchwad NCP nominee Nana Kate would have won Kalate and the NCP candidate together polled more votes than the BJP candidate who wonHad Kalate not contested the election the NCP candidate would have won by 20000 votes he saidTalking to PTI senior journalist and author Prakash Akolkar said the byelection results were a lesson to the opposition partiesIt gave out a message that united we win divided we fall he saidAkolkar also said Uddhav Thackeray will have to rethink on his alliance with Prakash Ambedkar head of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi VBA who openly supported Rahul Kalate the independent candidate in Chinchwad when Thackeray was persuading Kalate to withdraw from the raceAnother political observer said The bypoll result gives out a message to the ruling BJP to get its act together and also to introspect while it gives a message to the opposition MVA to unite for better electoral prospectsAfter losing the Kasba bypoll the BJPs tally in the state Assembly came down to 105 from 106This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever