Post win, CONG-NCP alliance may flourish
MUMBAI: Victory in the Lok Sabha bypoll for Bhandara-gondiya, a constituency in the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)’S stronghold of Vidarbha, may give a muchneeded boost for the opposition Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
The victory is being attributed to the united show by the two opposition parties which had fought separately in the assembly elections in 2014 and suffering from a ‘trust deficit’ until they joined hands against the BJP.
Ncp-congress candidate Madhukar Kukde defeated the BJP’S Hemant Patle by more than 40,000 votes.
The result was announced on Thursday.
The bypoll was necessitated in the constituency after sitting BJP MP Nana Patole revolted against the party and resigned in December last year.
Patole had attacked the BJP leadership calling it ‘anti-farmer’ while submitting his resignation. He later joined the Congress, the party he had left ahead of the 2014 elections.
The Congress agreed to let the NCP contest the seat since Bhandara-gondiya was with the latter in the electoral agreement between the two parties for the 2004, 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha polls. In this backdrop Patole had resolved to defeat the BJP candidate and to achieve this, he even buried his differences with NCP leader Praful Patel, against whom he fought LS elections in 2014 from Bhandara-gondiya.
“Both the parties sincerely fought against the BJP by highlighting the failure of its government in containing the agrarian crisis. This could set new equations of the alliance in the state in the forthcoming general elections. The victory on the similar lines of what happened in the Kairana in Uttar Pradesh in bypolls held on Monday,” said a Congress leader, who did not want to be named.
Patole said the victory was a result of the whole-hearted support for both the parties.
Both the parties have already announced that they will be contesting all the forthcoming elections together.
The announcement came after the NCP hobnobbed with the BJP for three years after the 2014 assembly polls.
However, the trust deficit between the two parties has not gone completely.
“Bhandara-gondiya was one off case, it needs to be watched if the NCP will sincerely help the Congress candidates in the elections. Questions are being also raised if the party had supported Congress candidate in the Palghar bypoll,” remarked a top Congress leader.
The alliance had come to power in the state in 2004 and 2009 when they contested assembly elections together. MUMBAI: Maharashtra delivered a mixed bag of by-election results for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which retained the Palghar Lok Sabha seat by thwarting its ally Shiv Sena, but lost Bhandara-gondiya to the Nationalist Congress Party (Ncp)-congress alliance.
Even so, the victory in Palghar comes as relief for the BJP, whose leaders in the state are hoping the Shiv Sea will now tone down the aggressive stance it has adopted vis-a-vis its coalition partner. Bickering between the two parties isn’t likely to stop.
BJP’S Rajendra Gavit won the Palghar constituency bypoll by defeating Shiv Sena’s Shrinivas Wanga by more than 29,000 votes. The bypoll had become a prestigious contest for the BJP after the Sena fielded Wanga, son of BJP member of Parliament Chintaman Wanga, whose death necessitated the bypoll.
Gavit is a Congress turncoat. The constituency in Mumbai’s neighbourhood saw a bitter campaign with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at the forefront. There had been speculation that the Shiv Sena would pull out of the government if it managed to win the election.
Fadnavis pulled out all stops to ensure that the BJP retained the seat. Gavit won 272,780 votes to 243,206 for . Wanga. Local political group Bahujan Vikas Aghadi received 222,887 votes.
The result comes as a loss of face for the Sena, which made an abortive attempt to wrest a seat held by its ally. In fact, the seat always went to the BJP in seatsharing arrangements between the two saffron allies for over two decades. The Sena broke convention, but its gambit failed to pay off. Sena MP Sanjay Raut said the party proved a point by giving a tough fight to the BJP in Palghar. “We will win this seat in 2019 elections,”he told journalists.
Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray however, said, “I am not ready to accept this defeat because ‘saam, daam, dand, bhed (negotiation, money, punishment and division)’ were used to win the polls.” He called for the bypoll results to be held back however, the EC rejected this demand later in the evening.
BJP leaders are confident that Thackeray will not take the precipitate step of pulling out of the alliance.
“We don’t see any impact on the stability of the government soon. Remember we fought a bitter election for the Mumbai civic body over a year ago and still continued to be in alliance at the state level. Moreover, even if the Sena pulls out at some point of time, our government in the state will complete its full term,”said a senior BJP minister who did not want to be named.
The defeat in Bhandara-gondiya Lok Sabha constituency is a reverse for the BJP.
The constituency is in the Vidarbha region, which is seen as a BJP stronghold. NCP’S Madhukar Kukde won the seat with 270,471 votes to 243,204 votes for the BJP’S Hemant Patle The by-election was necessitated by the resignation of BJP MP Nana Patole, who crossed over to the Congress.
“The result reflects the sentiments of the people. They are not happy with the policies of the BJP governments at the Centre and in the state,”said senior NCP leader Praful Patel, who represented Bhandara-gondiya in the past.