Wrestler Tadas floors Cong’s Tokas by big margin

Nagpur: Though there was no clear favourite in Wardha Lok Sabha seat, which saw straight fight between Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Ramdas Chandrabhanji Tadas and Congress’s Charulata Tokas, the former emerged a winner with handsome margin.
Tadas, 66, was leading over Tokas by a margin of over 1.60 lakh votes. This is the second term for Tadas from Wardha, a Gandhian district. Tadas was earlier a member of Maharashtra Legislative Council from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Later, Tadas joined BJP in 2009 and contested Deoli assembly seat in Wardha district but was defeated by Congress’s Ranjit Kamble.
The sitting MP, also vice-president of BJP state unit, comes with rich political experience and was chairperson of Deoli Municipal Council from 1985 to 1998. Tadas had won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections by securing 5,37,518 votes while Congress’s Sagar Meghe had secured 3,21,735 votes. Though Tadas’s win is certain this time, it is not clear whether he would reach the 2.15 lakh margin of last time.
Wardha was a Congress stronghold until 1991 when Ramchandra Ghangare of CPI(M) won from here. In 1996 it was BJP’s Vijay Mude secured the seat, a performance it repeated only in 2004 with Suresh Waghmare. In 2009, veteran Datta Meghe had won from here. Tadas won back the seat for BJP in 2014 and is set to win second consecutive term now.
Tadas is a former wrestler and has won Vidarbha Kesri title. He has been associated with Bajrang Vyayamshala. He has also participated in international wrestling competition. His critics say his performance as MP was not impressive but this vote is perhaps for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who held a public rally both in 2014 and 2019 here.
Tadas admits that Modi rally, which was well attended, boosted his victory margin. During electioneering it was considered a close contest with political experts predicting that the margin either way would not be more than 50,000 votes. Tadas proved them wrong.