Congress' Abhijit Wanjari retains Nagpur graduates' seat, beats BJP's Sudhakar Kohle by 3,271 votes

Nagpur is in focus after the results of the Maharashtra Legislative Council elections, with #Nagpur trending on social media and people looking up Congress leader Abhijit Wanjari again. Wanjari retained the Nagpur graduates' constituency seat by defeating BJP candidate Sudhakar Kohle.

Wanjari got 67,231 votes against Kohle's 63,960, a winning margin of 3,271. Counting began on October 27 and ran for more than 40 hours. The result was declared on October 29. Second-preference votes decided the close contest.

Abhijit Govindrao Wanjari is a Congress leader, lawyer and educationist. He represents the Nagpur division graduates' constituency in the Maharashtra Legislative Council. He first won the seat in 2020, defeating the BJP's Sandip Joshi. With the fresh win he gets a second consecutive term. This is a region where the BJP has traditionally been dominant.

Wanjari's family has been involved in politics. His father, the late Govindrao Marotrao Wanjari, was a Congress leader and a two-time MLA from South Nagpur. Abhijit Wanjari studied BA and LLB at Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University.

His political career began in student politics. Between 1998 and 2002 he was general secretary of the Maharashtra state unit of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI), the Congress student wing. He later worked with the Maharashtra Pradesh Youth Congress and held organisational responsibilities in the Nagpur District Congress Committee. Before reaching the Legislative Council, he also contested Assembly elections, including the 2005 South Nagpur by-election and the 2014 East Nagpur Assembly election. His 2020 MLC win was regarded as the high point of his electoral career.

In the second round of counting, the BJP's Kohle led on first-preference votes with 60,924, while Wanjari had 56,630. Independent candidate Nitesh Karale had 24,249 votes. No candidate reached the required quota, so counting continued through rounds of subsequent preferences and elimination of candidates. In the end Wanjari moved ahead with 67,231 votes to Kohle's 63,960. Preference votes thus overturned the early lead.

Political attention is on the Nagpur result also because the city is the hometown of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. Both leaders had campaigned for Kohle. The constituency was held by Gadkari for several terms before he moved to national politics. Wanjari had already broken the BJP's hold on the seat in 2020 and in 2026 he defended it.

For the Congress this is an electorally important gain in Vidarbha. The party can present the win as evidence that, despite the BJP's strong presence, the contest in the region is evenly matched. For the BJP the defeat raises questions about its strategy, as it had hoped to win the seat back. However, the result of one MLC election should not be taken as a direct indicator of other elections.

Five constituencies were up for election to the Legislative Council. According to the results so far, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won three seats and the ruling Mahayuti alliance two. The Nagpur contest has also become a talking point in the larger political tussle between the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition MVA.