Harshada Deshmukh-Jadhav wins Pune Graduates' constituency; BJP's Smita Jadhav falls short

The BJP did not get the expected success in the Pune Graduates' constituency. Despite being in power, its organisation, the backing of an influential political family and an all-out effort to win, the result did not go the BJP's way. Harshada Deshmukh-Jadhav of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) won.

The constituency had slipped out of the BJP's hands in 2020. To win it back, the BJP inducted Smita Jadhav, from an influential family of Kolhapur, into the party at the last minute and fielded her as its candidate. However, this surprise move did not have the intended effect. The politics of candidate selection, discontent within the party and the organisational strength of the Opposition are back in discussion. Where exactly the BJP's calculations went wrong despite an influential surname and being in power has become the most important question after the result.

Smita Jadhav is related to Congress leader Satej alias Bunty Patil. The BJP may therefore have hoped to gain from the political equations in Kolhapur. But the Congress honoured the Maha Vikas Aghadi's alliance commitments and backed Harshada Deshmukh-Jadhav. The result showed that political commitment outweighed personal ties.

Harshada Deshmukh-Jadhav benefited from Sharad Pawar's leadership and coordination within the Maha Vikas Aghadi. She is the daughter of Prabhakar Deshmukh, so her contacts in the Pune, Satara and Sangli region also counted. Sunil Modi of Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena was in the fray, yet the BJP did not get the benefit it expected from a division of votes. The result made clear that the planning by the alliance partners, which took local equations into account, and their booth-level coordination proved more effective than the BJP's.

The constituency spreads across five districts: Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur. In it, 47 candidates were in the fray. In practice, the main contest was between Smita Jadhav and Harshada Deshmukh-Jadhav. It had been discussed that Sharad Lad, son of sitting MLA Arun Lad, and Bhaiyya Mane, a leader of the Ajit Pawar faction, were keen on the ticket. The question arose whether giving the opportunity to Smita Jadhav in the end caused discontent among the aspirants' supporters. Bhaiyya Mane had filed his nomination as an independent but later withdrew. How actively the aspirants' supporters took part in the campaign can be answered only through the BJP's own introspection.

A dispute has also arisen over the counting after the defeat. During counting, objections were raised over the seals of some ballot boxes, which raised questions about the election process. These objections are expected to be taken up and the matters verified. However, it would not be right to confine the analysis of the defeat to the counting alone. The choice of candidate, local organisational structure, the discontent of aspirants and the actual participation of workers will also have to be reviewed in depth. How effectively the booth-level machinery was working, how far the party's message reached voters and how actively local leaders and workers played their part in the campaign will also have to be examined.