Mumbai: The BJP on Thursday lost the Bhandara-Gondiya Lok Sabha seat to the NCP but retained the Palghar seat in the bypolls held in Maharashtra. In Bhandara-Gondiya seat, which the BJP had won in 2014, Madhukar Kukade of the NCP won by 48,097 votes, defeating Hemant Patle of the saffron party.
Kukade polled 4,42,213 votes as against 3,94,116 of the BJP in a direct contest. The bypoll in this constituency was necessitated as BJP MP Nana Patole had quit the Lok Sabha membership as well as the party after publicly criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's style of functioning.
Later he joined the Congress, with which he had been associated earlier. With this win, NCP's number in the Lok Sabha has gone up to five while BJP's number of MPs in the lower house from the state has reduced to 22.
In Palghar, BJP's Rajendra Gavit defeated Shrinivas Wanaga of the party's ally Shiv Sena by 29,572 votes, a state election official said. Gavit polled 2,72,782 votes while Wanaga got 2,43,210 votes in the bypoll which saw a bitter fight between the BJP and ally Shiv Sena, which jointly rule the state and are in alliance in the central Narendra Modi-led government.
The bypoll in this constituency was necessitated because of the death of BJP MP and Shrinivas Wanaga's father Chintaman Wanaga. Baliram Jadhav of Bahujan Vikas Agadhi (BVA) got the third place with 2,22,838 votes, while Kiran Gahla of the CPM secured 71,887 votes.
Damodar Shingda of the Congress finished a distant fifth with 47,714 votes. Shankar Bhaga Badade of Marxist Leninist Party of India polled 4,884 votes. Sandeep Jadhav, the lone independent in the fray got 6,670 votes. There were a total of 17,31,077 voters.
The number of valid votes polled was 8,69,985. There were 16,884 votes for NOTA.
Gavit was in the Congress before joining the BJP and had been a minister in the previous Congress-NCP government. Palghar, on the outskirts of Mumbai, is a Scheduled Tribe reserved constituency.
Commenting on the loss, Shiv Sena chief Uddav Thackeray said, "Out of over 8 lakh people who voted in Palghar, over 6 lakh rejected the BJP."
Addressing a press conference, he blamed the EVMs and threatened to drag the Election Commission to Court while demanding suspension of the election officers over the sudden increase in voting percentage. He added that while the Sena had never contested in Palghar before, he was in two minds this time as well and the only reason why it decided to do so was to give justice to Shriniwas Wanaga, who was "mistreated" by the BJP.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the Election Commission should investigate malfunctioning of the EVMs as the BJP too was affected because "our early morning voters don't return to polling booths after snags in the machines."
NCP said its success in Bhandara-Gondiya was a stamp of approval against the "dictatorial style" of functioning of Modi. NCP spokesman Nawab Malik said the BJP had benefitted in Palghar bypoll due to division of votes. The Congress and the NCP had joined hands to take on the BJP in both the seats.
