Congress's Wanjari keeps Nagpur graduates' seat by 3,271 votes; BJP blames split camp and voided ballots

Congress candidate Abhijit Wanjari has won the Nagpur division graduates' constituency in the Maharashtra Legislative Council for a second straight term, beating the BJP's Sudhakar Kohle by 3,271 votes after a count that ran for more than 41 hours. One account puts the duration at about 45 hours. Counting the first and second preferences together, Wanjari polled 67,231 votes and Kohle 63,960. Returning officer and Divisional Commissioner Vijayalakshmi Bidari handed Wanjari the certificate of victory, and the result was announced on October 29.

The seat lies in the city that houses the RSS headquarters and is the home ground of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. Gadkari himself held the constituency from 1990 to 2014. Wanjari first won it in 2020, defeating the BJP's Sandip Joshi. That year he had 61,701 votes to Joshi's 42,791 after second preferences, and he had led by 14,407 votes in the first round. The BJP had wanted the seat back this time, and Fadnavis, Gadkari and state minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule all campaigned in the closing days.

The Election Commission announced the schedule on September 22 and issued the notification on September 29. Polling took place on October 23 from 8 am to 4 pm, and the Commission set October 31 as the deadline for completing the whole process. The constituency has 2,55,603 registered voters, of whom 1,65,672 voted. Turnout was 73.05 per cent in Chandrapur, 72.95 in Gadchiroli, 71.29 in Gondia, 68.35 in Wardha, 67.07 in Bhandara and 60.35 in Nagpur district, the lowest. A total of 38 candidates were in the fray.

Counting began at 8 am on Tuesday, October 27, at the Divisional Sports Complex in Mankapur, with 84 tables. Election observer Dr Harshdeep Kamble, the returning officer and the district collectors, who act as assistant returning officers, were present. Ballots from 788 boxes at 445 polling stations were first bundled in lots of 25, and the main count began at about 2 pm. Of 238 postal ballots, 34 were invalid. Of the 204 valid ones, Wanjari got 101, Kohle 86 and the rest 17.

The first round covered 84,003 votes and ended at about 8 pm. Wanjari led it with 28,998 votes to Kohle's 28,071, a margin of 927. Independent Nitesh Karale, a rebel of the NCP (Sharad Pawar) who is known as Karale Guruji, had 14,708. Sanjay Thul had 1,762, Mangesh Wankhede 642, Dhananjay Borkar 612, Atul Deshmukh 576 and Sumedh Gadpayale 521. Kohle did better in the second round and went ahead. The totals after two rounds were Kohle 60,924, Wanjari 56,630 and Karale 24,249. The other candidates were far behind, with Thul on 3,091, Gadpayale 1,096, Wankhede 1,029, Deshmukh 921 and Borkar 849.

By then 1,65,906 ballots had been counted, of which 15,032 were invalid and 1,50,874 valid. That put the quota at 75,438, a figure no one had reached, so Kohle needed 14,514 more votes and Wanjari 18,808. Second preferences were then counted in elimination rounds. Anil Sole, the BJP rebel who stepped aside at Fadnavis's request but stayed on the ballot, had 274 votes including postal ones. Their second preferences went 88 to Kohle, 41 to Wanjari and 10 to Karale.

Kohle led by about 4,000 votes for a long stretch and was thought to be heading for victory. Late on Wednesday, counting began on second preferences from Karale's ballots. Most went to Wanjari, and Kohle's lead of about 1,200 vanished with roughly 14,000 Karale votes still to be counted. No one reached the quota even at the end, so Wanjari was declared elected as the candidate with the highest combined tally. Karale's final total is reported as 25,908 by some accounts and 25,909 by others. Before the count, the BJP's own survey had put him at about 15,000. Karale had claimed 40,000 to 45,000 first-preference votes. He also objected that eight more ballot papers than expected had come out of one box.

Invalid ballots became the biggest talking point. Kohle said about 9,000 BJP voters wrote 2 instead of 1 against his name, which voided their ballots. 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. To those BJP voters who wrote '2' instead of '1' against my name, my request is that casting such a vote is not right for democracy. We will not concede until the entire count is over." He later said senior party leaders would analyse the defeat. He has indicated he will appeal over the invalid votes, which could bring the counting under further scrutiny.

The numbers on the invalid votes differ between reports. Counts of the pattern range from over 3,000 to six or seven thousand and about 9,000, and one report puts total invalid votes at 15,106 against the official 15,032. Whether the pattern was deliberate or an accident remains open. Some in the BJP wondered aloud if it was sabotage. Ravi Waghmare, a senior Sangh volunteer and former BJP worker, said he suspected a conspiracy. He argued that discerning voters had effectively cast a NOTA vote, since the election has no such option. He also said Karale polled heavily in areas where the BJP has influence, and that his support showed that Gen Z cannot be ignored. He added that the BJP had fielded Kohle, of the Kunbi community, to keep caste out of the contest, and that this calculation went wrong. The pattern alone cannot establish why the ballots were invalid.

Reasons for the defeat were listed widely. Open factionalism surfaced when Kohle was picked. Sole, with former MLA Girish Vyas, rebelled. Fadnavis went to Sole's house on October 12 and persuaded him to step aside, but it is doubted whether the cadre's anger was fully removed. Kohle was seen as having been away from active politics after losing the West Nagpur Assembly seat to Vikas Thakre. Some traditional voters stayed away or voided their ballots. Others were upset that no Brahmin candidate was fielded, though there are no figures on that effect. Critics said the party chased first preferences and neglected second and third, and ignored smaller candidates, while Wanjari courted them. How many BJP votes Sole split is not established. Sole's supporters were also said to be unhappy at being sidelined.

Karale said: "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 Wanjari should not take the credit himself.

The mood in Nagpur was tense at times. Workers of both parties shouted slogans outside the counting centre and at midnight, and police moved them apart. Some independent candidates staged a sit-in on Wednesday morning. BJP MLA Praveen Datke embraced Wanjari when he arrived at the centre. Congress workers began celebrating before the result was official.

State Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal said the win showed that money and power had been humbled. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had written Congress off as a "zero" before the result. NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar congratulated Wanjari on X and taunted Fadnavis over a deleted tweet. BJP MLA Parinay Phuke blamed the Shinde Sena for not backing Kohle, and said a report would go to the leadership. Bawankule, who ran the BJP campaign, took responsibility, promised corrective steps and said those who damaged the party would be identified. He said the party would try to win the seat back at the next election. State BJP president Ravindra Chavan is reported to be reviewing Nagpur and Pune and to be meeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah on November 2.

Wanjari is a lawyer, born in Nagpur on May 10, 1973. His late father, Govindrao Marotrao Wanjari, was a two-time Congress MLA from South Nagpur. He holds BA and LLB degrees from Nagpur University and sat on its Senate and Management Council. He was general secretary of the Maharashtra NSUI from 1998 to 2002, later a secretary of the state Youth Congress, and has held posts in the Nagpur District Congress Committee. His wife, Smita Wanjari, is a lecturer and Senate member. His affidavit lists 18 criminal cases, in none of which he has been convicted, and assets above Rs 16.21 crore against liabilities above Rs 3.17 crore.

Across the state, the Maha Vikas Aghadi won three of five seats and the Mahayuti two. Congress had said it fielded candidates for 28 or 29 Council seats in four states, with Nagpur its only win. Reports differ on the Pune results, so they are not settled here. Pratapsinh Patil of the NCP (SP) won Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar graduates', beating the NCP's Satish Chavan. Kiran Sarnaik of the Shinde Sena won Amravati teachers'. On Thursday in Mumbai, Fadnavis shared a stage with Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray.