Cong loses 60-year-old bastion to ‘rising’ BJP

The BJP on Friday scored a major victory by bagging 41 seats in the 70-seat Latur municipal council, a former Congress stronghold where it had literally no presence in 2012.

Latur had been a Congress bastion for the last 60 years, but the party managed to win only 28 seats on Friday. In fact, the Congress had reigned supreme in the municipality, zilla parishad, all four civic councils and panchayat samitis when its leader Vilasrao Deshmukh, a former chief minister, was alive. The district had also given Congress another CM earlier, Shivajirao Nilangekar Patil — from June 1985 to March 1986.

This time, however, the BJP has turned the tables on the late Deshmukh’s son, Amit Deshmukh, a former minister of state.

Amit led Congress in the council poll whereas Nilangekar’s grandson Sambhaji Nilangekar Patil, a Cabinet minister, shouldered the responsibility for the BJP. Sambhaji had switched to the BJP a long time ago after falling out with his grandfather.

While the BJP could not win a single seat in Latur in 2012, the Congress had a one-sided mandate with 49 while the Shiv Sena had won six and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 13. This time, the NCP managed to bag a single seat while the Sena got none.

The BJP has been on the rise in the district since the last general elections when it won a Lok Sabha seat there for the first time. Since then, the party had concentrated its efforts on the district.

Its efforts paid off as it won all four council seats in 2016. The BJP also won most of the zilla parishad seats and seven panchayat samiti seats in March 2017.

Conceding defeat, Amit said, “We accept the people’s verdict. We will introspect and start working hard again.”

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed his satisfaction with the results. “These results show that the people have faith and hope in the BJP only,” Mr Fadnavis said.