Nagpur graduates' seat: no candidate reaches quota, second-preference count begins

The counting of votes in the Nagpur graduates' constituency has seen a neck-and-neck contest since yesterday. The seat is the home turf of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and the whole state is watching the result. According to the latest information available till Wednesday morning, 1,50,874 votes were found valid after two rounds of counting. On that basis the winning quota works out to 75,438 votes, but neither of the two main candidates has reached that figure. The next stage of the process has therefore begun, and second-preference votes are being counted.

Congress candidate Abhijit Wanjari led in the first round. The picture changed in the second round, and by the end of it BJP's Sudhakar Kohle had moved ahead by 4,291 votes. Even so, no candidate, Kohle included, has met the quota. Counting has been going on for around 20 hours, and the trends that have emerged are being described as surprising.

Independent candidate Nitesh Karale surprised everyone in the first two rounds. He is third with 24,249 votes. The question now is how many of the second-preference votes from his tally go to the BJP and Congress candidates. The outcome of this Nagpur contest is believed to rest on that.

On polling, Nagpur recorded 60 per cent turnout. In the Chandrapur, Gondia and Gadchiroli area, turnout was over 71 per cent. The entire BJP had gone into the contest united. In the final phase of the campaign, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Nitin Gadkari and Chandrashekhar Bawankule all came to campaign. It was said that this would certainly have had an effect on voters. For that reason, when counting began yesterday morning, Sudhakar Kohle was fully confident of victory and felt he would win in the very first round. But as the night wore on, the picture kept changing, and it has now come to counting second-preference votes.

The BJP's initial survey had estimated that Nitesh Karale could get around 15,000 first-preference votes. Karale has done better than this, with around 25,000 votes in the first two rounds. Since yesterday there had been talk that if Karale got 15,000 first-preference votes, the result of the Nagpur graduates' seat would be decided by whom those voters gave their second preference. That talk now appears to be proving right. No political party has a firm idea of which way the second-preference votes will lean more. The full picture of the result is expected to become clear by this afternoon.