We expect Mohan Joshi to win by 20K votes: Congress

PUNE: With counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections being announced on Thursday, the Congress office in the city is getting ready for the results. Congress City Unit Chief Ramesh Bagwe said that a total of 107 workers have been appointed as counting agents for Pune constituency and have been given special training. The Congress is confident of victory in Pune and has placed an order of 50 kg sweets at Karachi Sweets and MR Ghodke.

“We have given training to all our counting agents in a special workshop held three days ago. This training session was conducted to inform our workers regarding the EVM and VVPAT,” said Bagwe.

Bagwe feels that exit polls will be wrong as he is confident of Congress’ victory in Pune. He said, “Exit polls are absolutely wrong. We are confident of a non-BJP government at the Centre and victory for Congress-NCP in the State. We are expecting our candidate Mohan Joshi to win with a difference of 20,000 votes.”

Talking about the EVM row, he said, “During elections, there were many complaints of EVM malfunctions which raises doubts of the credibility of EVMs and that is the reason why 22 opposition leaders are raising questions.”

Mohan Joshi, Congress-NCP candidate from Pune is confident of his victory. He said, “BJP’s image is out in five years as corrupt and arrogant and we have full faith in Pune people that they will choose the right person.”

Joshi said, “We have already mentioned our concerns in a letter to the Returning Officer (RO). There are two AROs, one of Parvati assembly constituency and other in Shivajinagar who are from the same ministry as Girish Bapat. It is a kind of Model Code of Conduct violation and we have expressed the same in a letter to the collector.”

However, Naval Kishore Ram, District Collector who is also RO for Pune, said, “We have already communicated in my written letter to the candidate about the same.”

“Any officer who is on duty is working under the government and a given department. It doesn’t establish a personal relation with the minister of the department.”