Congress's Abhijit Wanjari wins Nagpur graduates' seat, beats BJP's Kohale by 3,271 votes

Congress candidate Abhijit Wanjari has won the Nagpur division Legislative Council graduates' constituency election. Adding first and second preference votes, he got 67,231 votes. His rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party's Sudhakar Kohale, got 63,960. Returning officer and Divisional Commissioner Vijayalakshmi Bidari handed Wanjari the certificate of victory. According to the Election Commission's official information, Wanjari won by a margin of 3,271 votes.

Counting began at 8 am on Tuesday, October 27, on 84 tables at the Divisional Sports Complex in Mankapur, Nagpur. It ran for more than 41 hours. Election observer Dr Harshdeep Kamble, returning officer Vijayalakshmi Bidari, the assistant returning officers (the collectors of all districts in the division) and the officials and staff deployed for counting were present.

In two rounds of counting of first preference votes, no candidate reached the quota of 75,438 votes needed to win. As per the election procedure, an elimination round of second preference votes was therefore held. Of the 1,65,906 votes counted in the two first-preference rounds, 15,032 were found invalid and 1,50,874 were held valid. No candidate reached the quota in the second-preference elimination rounds either. Wanjari, who had the highest tally of 67,231 votes counting first and second preferences together, was declared elected.

The Election Commission of India announced the election schedule on September 22. The notification was issued on September 29. Polling was held on October 23 between 8 am and 4 pm. Counting began at 8 am on October 27 and finished 41 hours later. The Commission has set October 31 as the deadline for completing the entire election process.

The counting was keenly contested. In the first round, Congress's Wanjari was ahead. In the second round, the BJP's Kohale took a lead of about 4,000 votes. The lead held until Wednesday evening, and everyone then thought the BJP would win the Nagpur graduates' seat. But the picture changed at night, when counting of second-preference votes on Nitesh Karale's ballot papers began. Wanjari's lead then grew rapidly and Congress workers began celebrating.

Meanwhile, Kohale did not appear ready to accept the result. He said that although Congress was celebrating, he had not conceded defeat. According to Kohale, the 36th elimination round was under way and he was ahead by 3,000 votes up to that round. He said 9,000 BJP votes were eliminated and that was where he fell behind. He appealed to the BJP voters who wrote 2 instead of 1 against his name, saying it was not right to vote this way for democracy. Kohale said he would not accept defeat until the entire count was over.

In the end, Wanjari won by 3,271 votes. Kohale then said only that senior leaders of his party would analyse the defeat, and left the counting centre.