BJP scores ‘cent percent’ in Jamner municipal poll

Minister Girish Mahajan’s wife, Sadhana Mahajan, elected as council president

In a resounding victory, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday snared all 24 seats in the Jamner municipal poll in Jalgaon district, with Sadhana Mahajan, the wife of senior BJP leader and Maharashtra Minister Girish Mahajan, being elected to the presidential post.

The result is expected to strengthen Mr. Mahajan’s bastion in Jalgaon district. The win was especially crucial for the Water Resources Minister as Jamner happens to be his Assembly constituency.

Ms. Mahajan, who was the BJP’s nominee in this ‘battle for prestige’, easily trounced the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) candidate Anjali Pawar by more than 8,000 votes to be elected as president of the Jamner Municipal Council.

She polled 17,893 votes, coasting to victory by defeating Ms. Pawar, who garnered 9,540 votes. Large numbers of jubilant BJP workers staged a victory rally across Jalgaon district soon after the results.

“The people of Jamner have delivered an emphatic verdict by voting for the BJP’s development works. They have rendered the politics of caste practiced by the NCP and the Congress completely ineffectual,” said an ecstatic Mr. Mahajan, who joined the victory procession following the results.

In the 2013 election to the Jamner Council, the Congress-NCP alliance was in the ascendant, winning 14 seats with the coalition’s candidate Paras Lalwani serving as president for the first two-and-a-half years.

A strange turn in political fortunes led to Ms. Sadhana Mahajan serving as president of the Jamner council in 2015.

According to election observers, Ms. Mahajan’s victory this time was a fait accompli as Mr. Mahajan had thrown his full weight in the poll arena, even going so far as to canvass in Jalgaon on his wife’s behalf a fortnight before the polling on April 6. The win also enables Mr. Mahajan, viewed as a close aide to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, to score political brownie points over his party rival, former Minister Eknath Khadse, who is another Jalgaon strongman from the Muktainagar constituency.