Kolhapur bypoll: Cong candidate Jayshri Jadhav leads, minister predicts victory by 15k votes

By around 11.30 am on Saturday, the Congress candidate was leading by over 13,998 votes compared to the BJP’s Satyajit Kadam. Jadhav has so far secured 58,351 votes, while Kadam got 44,353 votes.

Speaking to this paper, minister and Congress leader Satej Patil expressed confidence that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) candidate will win the bypoll. “Our candidate should win by over 15,000 votes,” Patil said.

In the 2019 Assembly election, Chandrakant Jadhav had won the seat by 30,000 votes. “The BJP had aggressively campaigned in the name of Hindutva and Ram. They made attempts to distribute money to the voters. We succeeded in stopping them from doing so in some parts of the constituency… At this stage, we should have led by 15,000 votes. But the trend reflects that we will end up winning by a lesser margin compared to the last elections, primarily because of the BJP’s attempt to seek votes in the name of Hindutva and divide the voters,” Patil said.

Shiv Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut said the margin established by the MVA candidate right from the beginning shows that the voters in Kolhapur rejected BJP’s “fake Hindutva”. “Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had given clear-cut directions to our party workers and leaders to stand solidly behind the Congress candidate. The MVA has fought unitedly in Kolhapur and if we manage to stick to this formula, then BJP will never succeed in its politics of dividing people of Maharashtra in the name of religion,” Raut said.

Counting of votes began at 8 am amid tight security arrangements with workers and leaders turning up in huge numbers outside the counting centre. Around 61 per cent voting was registered in the bypoll held on April 12.