Boosting the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) combination in Maharashtra, Congress won the Kolhapur North Assembly constituency bypoll on Saturday, retaining the seat by beating the BJP by a margin of more than 18,000 votes.
Congressional MVA candidate Jayashri Jadhav got 96,176 votes, while BJP’s Satyajeet Kadam got 77,426 votes. Jadhav emerged victorious by a margin of 18,750 votes, election officials said.
The by-election of this segment of Congress in the Kolhapur district of western Maharashtra was necessitated after the death of incumbent Congress MLA Chandrakant Jadhav due to COVID-19 in December 2021. The Congress had removed the late legislator’s widow from this seat. The bypoll was held on April 12 in which 61.19 percent voter turnout was recorded.
After the result, the workers of the Congress, which shares power in the state with the Shiv Sena and the NCP, celebrated the victory by dancing to the tune of music and throwing ‘gulal’.
After speaking to reporters about her victory, Ms Jadhav thanked voters and said all three members of the MVA worked together to clinch the win.
Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole called the party’s victory as “victory of progressive thoughts”.
Maharashtra BJP president Chandrakant Patil said his party accepts voters’ decision.
Commenting on the development, Congress leader and Minister of State Balasaheb Thorat said: “The voters of Kolhapur North Seat have rejected attempts to create religious polarization. Kolhapur has always followed the principle of equality.” In Mumbai, congressmen set off fireworks at Tilak Bhavan, the party’s headquarters, in the Dadar area.
Speaking to reporters in Nagpur, Congress’ Mr Patole said: “Efforts have been made to cover up the Centre’s failures in terms of inflation, unemployment, poverty and the problems faced by small farmers and traders through religious hatred. create message from the birthplace of Shahu Maharaj.” The BJP has started to suffer defeat in all by-elections be it Bihar, Chhattisgarh or West Bengal, he added.
There were 15 candidates in the fight for the Kolhapur North seat, although the main battle was between the Congress and the BJP. During the poll campaign, senior leaders from both the MVA and the BJP had come to Kolhapur to recruit their candidates.
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
