KOLHAPUR: The heated campaign for the Pandharpur-Mangalwedha assembly bypoll ended on Thursday with flagrant violation of Covid-19 rules with masks not worn, social distance not maintained and far more than 200 people gathering at various spots.
In public meetings of both major parties, the attendance was in the thousands. Recently the district administration registered a case against the organisers of both
NCP and
BJP rallies for violation of Covid-19 norms.
Solapur district collector Milind Shambharkar had issued orders stating prohibitory rules introduced this week in the state would not be applicable for the poll campaigning and had allowed campaign rallies and meetings with not more than 200 attendees.
At the start of the campaign around 10 days ago, the contest looked easy for the NCP, which has fielded Bhagirath Bhalake, son of Bharat Bhalake, whose death necessitated the by-election.
The BJP deployed top guns like the leader of the opposition in the assembly Devendra
Fadnavis and party state unit president Chandrakant
Patil for the campaign for its candidate, Samadhan Autade. While Fadnavis addressed six rallies in a day, Patil was seen on the ground till the last day of campaigning.
This is the first assembly by-election challenge for the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). On the last day of campaigning,
Congress state unit president Nana Patole addressed a rally at Pandharpur while district guardian minister Dattatray Bharane held small meetings in Mangalwedha villages.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, in his address recently, had exempted the constituency from curfew orders.
There are 19 candidates in the contest for the assembly by-election.
Voting will be held on Saturday and counting, on May 2.
The MVA made emotional appeals to citizens to vote for Bhalake while the BJP slammed the MVA government over the corruption controversies around former home minister Anil Deshmukh of the NCP and the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The BJP also raked up local issues such as "denial" of dam water to Pandharpur-Mangalwedha by "MVA politicians". It brought up the repeated temple shutdowns under the MVA government.