Barring an upset in Amravati, the Bharatiya Janata Party–Shiv Sena alliance swept eight of the nine reserved Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.
Keenly fought battles were witnessed in all seats: Solapur (SC), Nandurbar (ST), Amravati (SC), Ramtek (SC), Gadchiroli-Chimur (ST), Dindori (ST), Palghar (ST), Latur (SC), and Shirdi (SC).
In Amravati, 34-year-old actor and Independent candidate Navneet Rana trounced Shiv Sena leader and two-time sitting MP Anandrao Adsul by a little over 35,000 votes. A former bastion of Congressman and farmer leader Panjabrao Deshmukh, the constituency has largely been dominated by the Sena and Mr. Adsul since 1996. In 2014, Ms. Rana, contesting on an NCP ticket, lost to Mr. Adsul by 1.37 lakh votes. This time, Ms. Rana’s extensive campaigning and connect with the rural voters helped her secure an edge over Mr. Adsul, largely viewed as a ‘Mumbai man’ by Chandrapur’s voters.
Arguably, the most prestigious contest in terms of candidates was in Solapur, where former Union minister and Congress leader Sushilkumar Shinde lost heavily to Dr. Jai Siddheshwar Shivacharya Swami, the Lingayat seer fielded by the BJP. Mr. Shinde lost by a margin of over 1.5 lakh votes.
What made the contest tough for Mr. Shinde was the entry of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi leader Prakash Ambedkar. He proved to be a major vote-splitter, eating into the Congress’s traditional Dalit-Muslim votebank in Solapur. Though he lost both constituencies he contested, Mr. Ambedkar secured over 1.6 lakh votes in Solapur, proving that a Congress-VBA alliance might have trounced the BJP.
Mr. Shinde, despite being elected MLA several times in the 1970s and twice as MP from Solapur, lost to BJP’s Sharad Bansode by nearly 1.5 lakh votes in 2014. This election, which Mr. Shinde had said would be his last, was meant to avenge his ‘accidental defeat’ in 2014.
The Maoist-afflicted constituency of Gadchiroli-Chimur saw BJP’s Ashok Nete triumph for the second time. He defeated Congress’s Dr. Namdeo Usendi by little over 70,000 votes. In Shirdi, sitting Shiv Sena MP Sadashiv Lokhande trounced Bhausaheb Kamble, the Congress-NCP candidate, by over 1.2 lakh votes. Despite Mr. Lokhande’s apparent disconnect with the electorate, active campaigning by estranged senior Congressman Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, and his son Dr. Sujay Vikhe-Patil of the BJP, worked in his favour. Raging factionalism within the Congress dented Mr. Kamble’s chances.
In Nandurbar, BJP’s young candidate Dr. Heena Gavit rallied to beat her nearest rival by over 95,000 votes. The victory further erodes the influence of the Congress in Nandurbar. In 2014, Dr. Gavit ended the Congress supremacy by defeating Manikrao Gavit by over one lakh votes to establish the BJP’s footing in the tribal-dominated district. The 85-year-old Mr. Gavit had won the general elections a record nine times beginning with the 1981 Lok Sabha election.
In Ramtek, sitting Sena MP Krupal Tumane beat the Congress’s Kishore Gajbhiye by more than 75,000 votes. Mr. Tumane defeated senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik by 1.75 lakh votes in 2014. This time, he faced a tougher fight from Mr. Gajbhiye.
The Palghar seat, with the largest number of NOTAs, saw the Sena’s Rajendra Gavit trump the Bahujan Vikaas Aghadi’s Baliram Jadhav by over 80,000 votes. In contrast, both Latur and Dindori seats witnessed one-sided fights with the BJP candidates posting massive victories over their Congress-NCP opponents. In Latur, Sudhakar Shrungare of the BJP beat the Congress candidate Machindra Kamat by more than 2.75 lakh votes. Likewise, in Dindori, the BJP’s Dr. Bharati Pawar effortlessly beat the NCP’s Dhanraj Mahale by more than 1.8 lakh votes.