Chandrapur LS seat: A veteran loses to a debutant

Chandrapur: Debutant Lok Sabha candidate of Congress Balu alias Suresh Dhanorkar toppled the four-term veteran parliamentarian and Union minister of state for home affairs Hansraj Ahir in Chandrapur.
Dhanorkar took a near insurmountable lead of 39,135 votes after 25 rounds of counting of 12 lakh votes out of total 12.34 lakh polled. With this, he will be the lone Congress MP from Maharashtra. Six rounds of Chandrapur assembly constituency and one each of five others were yet to be done till filing of this report.
All the tricks and campaigning by heavyweight leaders and filmstars failed to garner enough votes for Ahir. While failure of liquor ban proved to be main cause of the upset for the BJP, anti-incumbency and dissatisfaction of people over the work of Ahir despite being a minister of state took heavy toll on his votes.
Dhanorkar successfully played the community card and motivated Kunbi, Muslim and Dalit voters in his favour. Even Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi factor, which was the most prominent reason of fall for heavyweight leaders of Congress at many places, played negative for Ahir.
Dhanorkar gained lead over Ahir in the second round of counting and maintained the tempo till the end.
The official announcement of result is likely to be delayed due to time-consuming process of counting of mandatory VVPAT slips from five randomly selected EVMs in each of the assembly constituency, after counting from EVM machines is done.
Dhanorkar attributed the credit of his success to hard work of Congress and NCP leaders and support of people in Chandrapur.
Dhanorkar claimed that issues of tribals will be his priority. He will also raise demand for irrigation facilities in Chandrapur through building barrages on the rivers. He also put employment generation on his priority list.