Pune MLC polls: Count enters second day, Gawde leads teachers' seat, Harshada Jadhav ahead in graduates'

Counting of votes for five Legislative Council seats in Pune is still under way. Two of the seats are from the teachers' constituency and three from the graduates' constituency. Counting began at 8 am on Tuesday, the 27th. More than 24 hours have passed, but results have not yet been declared. The contest is between the Mahayuti and the Maha Vikas Aghadi, and the Pune graduates' race is neck and neck.

There were 30 candidates in the Pune teachers' election, of whom 26 have been eliminated. Votes are still being counted for the BJP's Kaustubh Gawde, Sachin Sanap, who has the Shiv Sena's support, Dattatray Sawant of the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha, and the Congress's Jayant Asgaonkar.

In the teachers' seat, Gawde is first with 17,948 votes. Sachin Sanap is second with 11,658 votes and Dattatray Sawant third with 10,574. Sitting MLC Jayant Asgaonkar is fourth with 8,620 votes.

The quota for victory has been set at 25,756 votes, and no candidate has yet reached it. With 26 candidates eliminated, the transfer of their second-preference votes will prove decisive. All eyes are on the final result, and the picture will become clear only after the elimination rounds.

Counting for the Pune graduates' seat is also continuing. Supporters of Harshada Deshmukh Jadhav, the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) candidate, are already celebrating with drums because she is leading. In the first round, Harshada Jadhav has received 1,12,400 votes, while the Mahayuti candidate Smita Jadhav has received 1,02,000 votes. The quota for the graduates' seat has been set at 1,13,113, and Harshada Jadhav needs 716 more votes to reach it.

In the five districts of the Pune division, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur, 2,43,611 votes were cast in the graduates' constituency. In the teachers' constituency, 53,185 voters cast their votes. There were 47 candidates in the graduates' contest and 30 in the teachers'.

Counting began in the Balewadi area under tight police security. The ballot paper collection stage continued until 3 pm. After that, valid and invalid votes were sorted. In the teachers' constituency this work was completed at 6.30 pm. Here 51,511 votes were found valid and 1,673 invalid. On this basis the winning quota was set at 25,756 votes. The work of making bundles of votes according to the order of preference then began.

Under the counting method, a candidate who reaches the set quota is declared elected. If no one reaches the quota, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and the second-preference votes on his or her ballot papers are added to the tallies of the candidates concerned. If the quota is still not met, the next lowest candidate is eliminated and the next-preference votes on those ballot papers are counted. This continues until the required quota is reached.