The BJP has not only retained its strongholds, but also converted traditional bastions of the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena with a clear mandate for the lotus across the city
Girish Bapat
The BJP has registered a thumping victory in Pune, winning all eight constituencies in the city and marking a striking change in the local political dynamics.
Not only has the party won by massive margins in its own strongholds, but it has also converted vote banks in constituencies considered as bastions of the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena.
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Girish Bapat shows the victory sign, after he won his fifth term with his highest ever margin yesterday.
Large victory margins
In its homeground in Kasba Peth and Parvati, BJP was leading as soon as counting began on Sunday morning. With 95,583 votes, Parvati MLA Madhuri Misal won yet another term with the highest ever margin in the city – 69,090 votes. She easily defeated the other frontrunners - Shiv Sena’s Sachin Tawre (26,493), NCP city leader, Subhash Jagtap (26,124) and Congress city president, Abhay Chajed (21,907). While Misal was confident she would win, she admits the massive margin has surprised her as well.
BJP MLA Madhuri Misal (Parvati) celebrating her win with her family.
“I was expecting a winning margin of around 40,000 votes. But I am happy that my constituency has given me such a massive lead, which is even more than the margin received by the BJP MP, during the recent Lok Sabha polls from Parvati,” she said.
In Kasba Peth, BJP MLA Girish Bapat won his fifth term yesterday, with his own highest ever margin of 42,272 votes. Despite facing stiff competition, the election proved to be a cake walk for Bapat, who won 73,594 votes, beating Congress’s Rohit Tilak (31,322), MNS candidate, Ravindra Dhangekar (25,998) and NCP’s Deepak Mankar (15,865).
“The state and the city have given a clear mandate to BJP. For all my critics, I want to share that this is my fifth win out of a total of six elections, and this time, the winning margin is my highest ever,” Bapat said.
Pune MP Anil Shirole celebrates BJP’s landslide victory in the city with party workers.
Edging Shiv Sena out
While the party performed well and retained the Parvati and Kasba Peth seats, it also won over Shiv Sena’s traditional seat, Kothrud, with a staggering margin of 64,662 votes. Despite being a new face contesting in an RSS bastion, BJP corporator Medha Kulkarni grabbed 1,00,941 votes to defeat sitting MLA Chandrakant Mokate (Shiv Sena) who got just 36,279 votes.
Perhaps the most thrilling race the city witnessed yesterday, was between BJP’s Jagdish Mulik and Shiv Sena’s Sunil Tingare, in the Vadgaon Sheri constituency, with Mulik winning by just 5,325 votes.
A BJP worker distributes sweets after BJP won in all eight Pune constituencies yesterday. Pics/Shashank Sane
Incidentally, Mulik was behind Tingare all the way till the end of the 19th round, when the margin between the two shrank to 119 votes, with Mulik still behind. However, Mulik then caught up and passed Tingare’s count in the succeeding rounds, with the final tally at 66,908 votes for Mulik and 61,583 for Tingare.
Asked whether he was tensed till the end, Mulik said, “My friends and party workers were hyper and had crossed their fingers. But I told them that the fate was already sealed in the ballot box. Since beginning I was confident about my victory.”
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