In a major jolt to former CM Devendra Fadnavis and Union minister Nitin Gadkari, BJP suffered a defeat in Nagpur graduates' constituency seat in the polls to the legislative council in Maharashtra.
BJP's Sandeep Joshi faced a humiliating defeat in Nagpur graduates' seat against Abhijeet Wanjari of Congress. Wanjari was supported by NCP and Shiv Sena. Nagpur is considered as a bastion of BJP because it is a home turf of BJP leaders like Devendra Fadnavis and Nitin Gadkari.
Joshi is the former mayor of the orange city and a close aid of the former CM Devendra Fadnavis.
Meanwhile, BJP also lost prestigious Pune graduates' seat, where NCP's Arun Lad defeated Sangram Singh Deshmukh of BJP. In Aurangabad division graduates' seat, Satish Chavan defeated Shirish Boralkar of BJP.
MVA ministers including Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, Jayant Patil, Balasaheb Thorat, Ashok Chavan, Hassan Mushrif, Dhananjay Munde, Amit Deshmukh, Satej Patil and Vishwajeet Kadam campaigned extensively for these seats in Pune and Aurangabad division.
While Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant was camping at Amravati to campaign as a party nominee.
On its part, BJP veterans including Union minister Nitin Gadkari, former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, state BJP chief Chandrakant Patil, former ministers Pankaja Munde and Chandrashekhar Bawankule campaigned for BJP nominees.
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