Wanjari retains Nagpur graduates' seat by 3,271 votes after 41-hour count, Karale's preferences decisive

Congress candidate Abhijit Wanjari has kept the Nagpur division graduates' constituency in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, beating the BJP's Sudhakar Kohale by 3,271 votes. The result was declared on October 29 after a count that ran for more than 41 hours. Adding first and second preferences, Wanjari polled 67,231 votes and Kohale 63,960. Independent Nitesh Karale, known as Karale Guruji, finished third with about 25,909 votes. One report puts his tally at 25,908.

Returning officer and Divisional Commissioner Vijayalakshmi Bidari gave Wanjari his certificate of victory. Counting began at 8 am on Tuesday, October 27, at the Divisional Sports Complex in Mankapur, on 84 tables. Election observer Dr Harshdeep Kamble, the assistant returning officers (the collectors of the districts in the division) and the counting staff were present.

The election had 38 candidates. The Election Commission announced the schedule on September 22 and issued the notification on September 29. Polling was held on October 23 from 8 am to 4 pm, and the Commission had set October 31 as the deadline for finishing the whole process. The constituency has 2,55,603 registered voters, of whom 1,65,672 voted. Turnout was highest in Chandrapur at 73.05 per cent, followed by Gadchiroli (72.95), Gondia (71.29), Wardha (68.35) and Bhandara (67.07). Nagpur district was lowest at 60.35 per cent.

The count began with 238 postal ballots, of which 34 were rejected. Of the 204 valid ones, Wanjari got 101, Kohale 86 and the rest 17. Ballots were sorted into bundles of 25, and the main count started around 2 pm. In the first round, covering 84,003 votes, Wanjari led with 28,998 against Kohale's 28,071, a gap of 927. Karale had 14,708. Of those 84,003 votes, 76,875 were valid and 7,128 were rejected. An unofficial early tally had put Wanjari at 28,536, Kohale at 27,751 and Karale at 14,243.

At the halfway stage Wanjari was reported to be ahead by 7,000 to 8,000 votes. The second round, which ran into early Wednesday, reversed this. Kohale took his total to 60,924 against Wanjari's 56,630, a lead of 4,294, while Karale stood at 24,249. Several reports gave slightly different margins for that stage, between 4,291 and 4,294, and two filings gave Kohale's total as 60,124. The quota was fixed at 75,438, half of the 1,50,874 valid votes plus one. Across the two rounds 1,65,906 votes were counted and 15,032 were invalid. Kohale needed 14,514 more votes to reach the quota and Wanjari 18,808.

With no one at the quota, second preferences were counted through elimination rounds. After 28 candidates were out, Kohale had 61,029 and Wanjari 56,785. The votes of Anil Sole, the former MLA who had rebelled and then stepped aside at Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's request, were also examined. He had 267 first-preference votes and 7 postal votes, 274 in all. Of these, Kohale got 88 second preferences, Wanjari 41 and Karale 10. Fadnavis had visited Sole's home on October 12 to persuade him.

Kohale led by about 4,000 votes and held that lead until Wednesday evening, and many assumed the BJP had won. The picture changed at night, when the second preferences on Karale's ballots were counted. Most went to Wanjari, who erased the deficit within an hour or two. Reports said Kohale's lead had shrunk to about 1,200 with roughly 14,000 of Karale's votes still to be counted. The BJP's own survey had put Karale at about 15,000 votes, well short of what he got.

Karale said: "On our ballot paper, Abhijit Wanjari gets the maximum votes. Abhijit Wanjari should not take the credit himself. There was anger among people against the BJP, so the number two vote was given to Abhijit Wanjari. The BJP did not ask for the number two vote, and that proved fatal for them." He added that Assembly and Lok Sabha elections should be held on ballot paper.

Kohale blamed invalid votes. As the count went on he said: "Congress has started celebrating, but we have not given up. The 36th round of invalid-vote elimination is on. Up to this round, I am ahead by three thousand votes. Around nine thousand BJP votes have been declared invalid. That is why we fell behind." He appealed to BJP voters who wrote 2 instead of 1 against his name, saying such voting was not right for democracy. He had earlier said many votes were wrongly declared invalid, demanded a recheck and warned of going to court if the result came out wrongly. After the result he said only that senior party leaders would analyse the defeat. A separate report said more than 3,000 ballots had 2 against Kohale's name with no first preference marked, and that the figures were not officially confirmed.

The campaign was heavily staked. Fadnavis, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule all campaigned for Kohale. Reports pointed to unrest over his candidature, the Sole rebellion, a belief that traditional voters were taken for granted, and the party's focus on first preferences alone. Kohale had lost the West Nagpur Assembly seat to Vikas Thakre. BJP state president Ravindra Chavan is reported to be reviewing the defeat and is said to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah on November 2. Among the ten reasons listed for the loss were Karale's showing, about three and a half times his previous vote, and the absence of a Brahmin candidate.

Wanjari, a lawyer who began in student politics, first won the seat in 2020 by defeating the BJP's Sandip Joshi. He polled 61,701 votes to Joshi's 42,791, winning by 18,919, and was then the first Congress winner there since 1978. He was Maharashtra NSUI general secretary from 1998 to 2002, later served the Youth Congress and the Nagpur District Congress Committee, and holds BA and LLB degrees from Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University. He is the son of the late Govindrao Marotrao Wanjari, twice an MLA from South Nagpur.

Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal said the BJP had lost despite power and money. Rohit Pawar of the NCP (Sharad Pawar) posted a taunt at Fadnavis over a deleted tweet. The Maha Vikas Aghadi won three of five Council seats, and the Mahayuti two.