Amravati: Voters in Amravati division teachers’ constituency seem to have rejected political candidates as an independent — Kiran Sarnaik — from Washim has taken 961-vote lead over sitting MLC and Shiv Sena candidate Shrikant Deshpande after the count of first preference votes.
While Sarnaik polled 6,095 first preference votes, Deshpande got 5,135. BJP’s Dr Nitin Dhande cut a sorry figure, finishing sixth with 2,130 votes after the count of first preference votes.
Another independent Shekhar Bhoyar was third with 4,889 votes, while Sangita Shinde-Bonde was fourth with 2,869 votes and Avinash Borde was fifth with 2,757 votes in the race for the member of legislative council seat from teachers’ constituency.
Of the 30,918 votes polled, 29,829 were found valid, leaving 1,089 infructuous. Based of the total valid votes, a quota of 14,916 has been decided for the winner. As no candidate reached this quota of first preference votes, the elimination process has begun.
Sarnaik retained his top position right from first round till the end of fifth sub-round, when all votes were counted for the first preference. Sarnaik, who has two offences registered against him for allegedly distributing Paithani saris and cash to voters, will now have to bank on the second preference votes during the elimination round.
The counting began at 8am at Vilasnagar godown under the supervision of divisional commissioner Piyush Singh, who is also returning officer, and observer Anand Limaye.
Mixing of ballots and preparing bundles took a lot of time. This resulted in the first round results being declared around 3pm even though there were 14 tables.
Though Sarnaik leads in the first preference vote count, the picture may change after the elimination round, say experts.