NOTA emerges second at two Maharashtra constituencies

AURANGABAD/KOLHAPUR: The none of the above (NOTA) option emerged at the second position in Latur rural and Palus Kadegaon assembly constituencies where Congress candidates Dhiraj Deshmukh (son of former chief minister late Vilasrao Deshmukh ) and Vishwajeet Kadam (son of senior leader Patangrao Kadam ) won by huge margins.

The Shiv Sena candidates at both these constituencies were relegated to third position.

Dhiraj, the youngest of the three Deshmukh brothers and contesting the elections for the first time, polled 1,34,615 out of the total 1,99,599 votes in Latur rural. The NOTA option with 27,449 votes was in the second. His nearest rival and Sena candidate Sachin alias Ravi Deshmukh polled 13,459 votes followed by Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi’s (VBA) Baliram Done with 12,930 votes.

At Palus Kadegaon in Sangli district, Vishwajeet Kadam, a sitting Congress MLA, polled 1,70,034 votes out of the total 2,06,517 votes and the NOTA option had 20,572 votes in the second position. Kadam’s nearest rival and Sena candidate Sanjay Vibhute was third with 8,907 votes.

As it turned out in Latur rural, most BJP workers claimed to have opted for NOTA to protest against the party’s decision to swap the seat with Ausa, where chief minister’s PA Abhimanyu Pawar was fielded by the BJP.

``I accepted the party’s decision as a humble worker, but my supporters didn’t take it lightly,’’ Ramesh Karad, who contested twice as BJP nominee from Latur rural told TOI. “I don’t know how at the last minute the seat was swapped. But it hurt many BJP workers. It was the jana bhavana (people’s sentiment) they opted for such a move in protest,” he said.

The Bharatiya Yuva Janata Morcha’s Renapur taluka president Narsing Yelgate told TOI that the seat was swapped when the party workers here were confident of victory. He pointed out that almost entire Renapur taluka (formerly represented by Gopinath Munde) comes under the Latur rural. The BJP has six zilla parishad members, all Renapur panchayat samiti members belong to BJP, several market committee members are from Renapur, Renapur Nagarpanchayat too is a part of this constituency. Besides party has its strong present.

But, the seat was swapped and Sena fielded Sachin Deshmukh, who didn’t even venture out to campaign for himself. The constituency doesn’t have Shiv Sena shakhas, still they fielded their candidate.

“Since, this did not go down well with the BJP workers. About three days ago we had a meeting where we decided to opt for NOTA,” said Yelgatte.

Meanwile, Sangli district BJP president and traditional rival of the Kadam family, Pruthviraj Deshmukh, who recently won an MLC seat, had sought the Palus-Kadegaon seat for BJP. However, in the seat sharing arrangement, the seat went to Sena which fielded Vibhute. Deshmukh was keen to field his cousin brother Sangram Deshmukh who is now president of Sangli Zilha Parishad.

The reason for NOTA emerging second in Palus Kadegaon lies in the discontent among the BJP local rank. A local BJP leader claimed that despite Sena's lack of strong leader the seat was given to Sena for contest. "On other hand we have a strong leader who is able to give tough fight to Congress candidate. The disgruntlement is reflected in the votes polled to NOTA option," said a local BJP leader on the condition of anonymity.

After the demise of educationist and former cabinet minister Patangrao Kadam, by-poll was announced for the constituency in May 2018. BJP had withdrawn its candidate at the last moment which led to win of Vishwajeet unopposed. The Congress supporters claimed that the silent appeal to vote for NOTA was made by the BJP local ranks, however not all supporters of BJP and in particular of Deshmukh did not heed to the appeal and voted for Kadam instead.