Mumbai, Nov 24 (IANS) Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena supremo Eknath Shinde has been credited with the victory of 30 out of the 39 legislators who had joined him after he staged a rebellion in June 2022 against then CM Uddhav Thackeray and walked away along with the BJP.
Not only was Shinde re-elected with a margin of over 1 lakh votes from Kapri-Pachpakhadi constituency defeating his nearest rival and Shiv Sena UBT nominee Kedar Dighe, 30 others won the elections from their respective constituencies. Only five sitting legislators lost, while in four seats Shinde had replaced the nominees.
The legislators, who had joined Shinde in his rebellion and won the elections, include Shambhuraj Desai, Mahesh Shinde, Mahendra Thorve, Bharatsheth Gogawale, Mahendra Dalvi, Prakash Abitkar, Balaji Kinikar, Ramesh Bornare, Tanaji Sawant, Abdul Sattar, Prakash Surve and Balaji Kalyankar.
The winners also include Sanjay Shirsat, Pradip Jaiswal, Sanjay Gaikwad, Vishwanath Bhoir, Shantaram More, Kishorappa Patil, Suhas Kande, Lata Sonawane, Pratap Sarnaik, Yogesh Kadam, Gulabrao Patil, Rajendra Yedravkar, Mangesh Kudalkar, Deepak Kesarkar, Dada Bhuse, Sanjay Rathod, Uday Samant and Manjula Gavit.
Shiv Sena legislator Anil Babar from Khalapur constituency in Sangli district, who had joined hands with Shinde, recently died. Shinde had nominated his son Suhas Babar who retained the seat.
Shinde had refused a ticket to the sitting legislator Srinivas Wanga, who was replaced by former minister Rajendra Gavit.
Gavit got elected from Palghar seat.
Furthermore, Shiv Sena legislator Chimanrao Patil, who threw his weight behind Shinde when he rebelled against Uddhav Thackeray, had opted out of the electoral fray as he had requested nomination for his son Amol Patil from Erandol seat in Jalgaon district. Shinde, thereafter, nominated Amol Patil who retained the Erandol seat.
Of the 39 legislators, five lost elections, including Shahaji Patil, Dnyanraj Chougule, Sanjay Raimulkar, Yamini Jadhav and Sada Sarvankar.
Shinde had travelled extensively as he addressed over 80 rallies across Maharashtra. He personally supervised the poll management of 85 candidates, including in the 39 seats.
During his rallies, he went on appealing to the voters to vote for MahaYuti to increase the pace of development in Maharashtra while defeating the Maha Vikas Aghadi which was tagged as ‘anti-growth’.
(Sanjay Jog can be contacted at sanjay.j@ians.in)
–IANS
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