Nagpur graduates' constituency count: BJP's Sudhakar Kohale ahead of Congress's Abhijit Wanjari

The results of the graduates' and teachers' constituency elections are due today, and counting of votes has begun. In the early trends, the first good news came for Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena. In the Amravati teachers' constituency, Kiran Sarnaik of the Shinde Sena is leading.

There is good news for the BJP too. In the Nagpur graduates' constituency, the BJP's Sudhakar Kohale is leading. The election is seen as a matter of prestige for Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, as the Chief Minister himself is from Nagpur.

A total of 38 candidates are in the fray in the Nagpur graduates' constituency. The main contest is between the BJP's Sudhakar Kohale and the Congress's Abhijit Wanjari. Wanjari is the Maha Vikas Aghadi candidate, while Kohale is the Mahayuti candidate. Nitesh Karale, who rebelled against the Nationalist Congress Party, is also contesting as an independent.

Congress won the seat in the last election, when Abhijit Wanjari defeated the BJP's Sandip Joshi. Wanjari got 61,701 votes and Joshi 42,791, a winning margin of 18,919 votes. In 2020, a Congress candidate won the seat for the first time since 1978, which means Congress took it after 42 years.

The election uses a preferential voting system. To win, a candidate must reach a fixed quota of valid votes. If no leading candidate gets the quota in the first round of counting, subsequent rounds and the transfer of preferences could decide the outcome.

The graduates' and teachers' constituency elections are considered important for the government because they show what the thinking section of society is thinking and what it makes of current government policies. This is why all eyes are on the election.