The seat in the Vidarbha region is witnessing a fight between Sanjay Dhotre, a three-term Member of Parliament from the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress leader Hidayat Patel who lost to Dhotre in 2014, and BR Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar, who won from this seat with Congress support in 1998 and 1999.

Farm crisis and the long-running drought are likely to be key issues in the seat, which is considered to be a BJP stronghold.

Chaos broke out at a polling booth in Kawtha village in the constituency after a school teacher allegedly damaged an EVM machine during polling.

However, the machine was replaced and police arrested the person accused.

Officials later said that the teacher damaged the EVM machine allegedly in protest against the EVM voting system.

Ambedkar is fighting the elections from Solapur, which also went to the polls on Thursday.

First Published: Apr 19, 2019 01:16 IST