Nagpur graduates seat: voting on October 23, BJP-Congress in direct fight

The Election Commission has announced the election schedule for the Nagpur division graduates constituency. As always, the contest for this Legislative Council seat will be between the BJP and the Congress, and both parties have begun their preparations. This time voter registration has also been carried out afresh, and it is believed that whichever party enrolled more voters will have a better chance of winning.

Looking at the history of this seat, from 1958 to 2020, that is for about 62 years, it remained under the control of the Jana Sangh and the BJP. After 1978, the seat became a firm BJP stronghold. But in the 2020 election, Congress's Abhijit Wanjari wrested the seat from the BJP. Now, with voting due on October 23, the BJP will want to win back its old stronghold at all costs, while the Congress will not want to lose the seat under any circumstances.

In the 2020 election, the BJP had given the ticket to Sandeep Joshi instead of its whip member Anil Sole, while the Congress had fielded Abhijit Wanjari. In that election, a total of 2,07,000 voters were registered and 1,32,923 votes were cast. The result was a setback for the BJP, with Joshi getting only 42,792 votes while Wanjari won with 61,701 votes, defeating him by 18,910 votes.

This time the Congress is again preparing to field Abhijit Wanjari, who has been engaged in voter registration and campaigning for months. Wanjari claims that this time he will win by a margin of at least 25,000 votes. On the other hand, the BJP has made its former MLA Sudhakar Kohale in charge of voter registration and had also promised him the candidacy. Kohale says that if he gets the chance, the seat will return to the BJP's fold, though the party has not yet finalised the name of its candidate.

According to the election schedule, the notification will be issued on September 29. The last date for filing nominations is October 6, and scrutiny of nomination papers will take place on October 7. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is October 9. Voting on October 23 will take place from 8 am to 4 pm, and counting of votes will be held on October 27. The entire process will be completed before October 31. This election schedule has been announced together for the state's 3 graduates and 2 teachers constituencies.

The model code of conduct has come into immediate effect in all 6 districts of the Nagpur graduates constituency, namely Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli. Abhijit Wanjari's current term ends on December 6.

Looking at the history of this seat, the late Gangadharrao Fadnavis won the 1978 and 1984 elections, and after that Nitin Gadkari won 4 consecutive elections from 1990 to 2008. In the 2002 election, Gadkari was elected unopposed. In the 2014 election, the BJP gave the ticket to Anil Sole and he won, but in the last election Wanjari defeated Joshi, breaking this BJP stronghold that had held since the Jana Sangh era. When this seat was contested for the first time in 1958, Jana Sangh's Bachhraj Vyas was elected. After that, Shridhar Sohoni, Vishnu Deshpande, Ramjivan Chaudhary, Dr Motiram Lahane and Dr Pramila Topale also reached the Legislative Council.