Tight contests in Maharashtra Council polls as counting runs late; Nagpur, Pune in focus

Counting for five seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council began on Tuesday, and the leads kept changing till late at night. The polls are being seen as a test for the ruling Mahayuti government in the state. The clear picture is expected only by early Wednesday.

By the time this report was written, there was a close fight between the Mahayuti and the Maha Vikas Aghadi on every seat. Voting was held on October 23. The five seats include three graduates' constituencies and two teachers' constituencies.

The most watched contest was in Nagpur, the home turf of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. A close fight was seen between the BJP's Sudhakar Kohale and the Congress's Abhijit Wanjari. In the previous election, the Congress had snatched the seat, which the BJP had held for 52 years. The party had been embarrassed then. This time the BJP made the seat a matter of prestige and worked out several equations.

To stop Congress legislator Wanjari, Nitesh Karale, a rebel from the NCP (Sharad Pawar) faction, had been fielded. The BJP had persuaded its own rebel, Anil Sole, to step back, but the results till late at night showed no sign of its effect. In the second round too, the two candidates remained locked in a tough fight.

The Amravati teachers' seat saw a three-cornered contest. Kiran Sarnaik, a legislator of the Shinde faction, appeared to be struggling to hold his seat. He had taken the lead in the first round. Independent Shrikant Deshpande was second and the Congress candidate Aditi Pohare third. In the second round, Sarnaik took a decisive lead.

In Marathwada, the path looked difficult for Satish Chavan, a legislator of the Ajit Pawar faction. Dr Pratapsingh Patil of the NCP (Sharad Pawar) faction had left him far behind in the first round. In the second round, Chavan built a lead of more than 7,000 votes. Dilip Ghuge, contesting on the Uddhav faction's flaming torch symbol, polled 10,926 votes and upset the calculations.

On the Pune city graduates' seat, a sudden lead for the NCP (Sharad Pawar) faction candidate Harshada Deshmukh surprised everyone. The BJP had fielded Smita Jadhav here with high hopes, but the late-night figures showed the BJP's calculations going awry. Whether the Pawar family still holds sway in Pune will be known only after the final results. On the Pune teachers' seat, the BJP's Kaustubh Gawde was ahead and the Congress's Jayant Asgaonkar was second.