Lok Sabha elections: Congress loses in Pune again, NCP wrests Shirur

PUNE: The Congress in Pune, which has won the city’s Lok Sabha seat 10 times in 17 general elections since 1952, is in tatters after the BJP’s Girish Bapat defeated its candidate Mohan Joshi by 3,24,628 votes, the highest ever victory margin.
“This (defeat) is hard to digest. We were hoping for a better performance,” a dejected Congress leader told TOI.
When BJP’s Anil Shirole had won the polls with a margin of 3.15 lakh votes, the Congress could console itself by saying that he was riding a Modi wave and their candidate, Vishwajeet Kadam, was an “outsider”.
“This time, we had a loyalist, yet we are unable to bridge the gap. Bapat was leading in most assembly constituencies. It is a continuation of the 2014 assembly and 2017 civic polls,” party workers said.
Bapat, on the other hand, was candid enough to acknowledge that his victory was because of a “Modi tsunami” that has swept the country once more. He also acknowledged the hard work put in by his partymen.
Counting was delayed as there were false claims about EVMs malfunctioning by the opposition, he said. It went on well past midnight on Thursday. “The Congress and other opposition parties should accept their defeat gracefully,” he added.
Though the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) won two seats of the three Lok Sabha constituencies from Pune region, the mood in the Sharad Pawar's party unit was subdued over Pawar's grand nephew’s Parth loss in Maval.
The 28-year-old lost the election to a seasoned Sena leader Shrirang Barne by a margin of over two lakh votes. Sharad Pawar tried to downplay the loss by saying that the party had no base in Maval. He said pitching Parth was part of an experiment to widen the party base.
“It is clear that the people have given priority to development and not a dynasty,” Barne said.
Victory was sweet for the NCP in Shirur as the party wrested the Shirur Lok Sabha bastion of the Sena. It had eluded the Pawars for the last three Lok Sabha elections.
Pawar's move to field popular Marathi stage and film actor Amol Kolhe paid off. Riding on his popularity of playing the role of Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj in a television serial, Kolhe defeated three-time Sena MP Shivajirao Adhalrao Patil by a margin of over 50,000.
As a parliamentarian, Kolhe said he will continue acting, but will also focus on redressing key civic issues in the constituency including water shortage.
While NCP failed to establish itself in Maval, Supriya Sule’s win in Baramati continued the Pawars’ stronghold in their home-turf.
The BJP had made Baramati a prestige battle. State cooperation minister Chandrakant Patil had said the party’s candidate Kanchan Kool would make inroads in Baramati. Sources said, that if not a win, the BJP top brass was convinced that Sule's victory margin will shrink further. However, Sule proved them wrong and increased her lead when compared to 2014.
Sule said the entire constituency was like her family and her victory was the outcome of the efforts by her party workers and well-wishers.
“For the last 10 years, I have been making efforts to follow the path of development. A time has come to set aside all differences and come together for the larger interest of the constituency,” Sule said.