Palghar Lok Sabha bypoll: Shiv Sena sees rise in vote share despite defeat in tribal-dominated constituency

Mumbai: The Shiv Sena may have lost the recently held Palghar Lok Sabha bypoll, but it managed to get more votes in the Assembly seats falling under the parliamentary constituency when compared to the 2014 Maharashtra elections. The Sena got over 60,000 more votes, while despite winning the seat, the BJP saw its vote count dropping in the tribal-dominated constituency. Sena candidate Shrinivas Wanaga lost to BJP nominee Rajendra Gavit by a margin of 29,572 votes in the by-election held on 28 May. The result in the tribal-reserved Lok Sabha seat located adjoining Mumbai was declared on 31 May. The Palghar bypoll was necessitated due to the death of sitting BJP MP Chintaman Wanaga. A comparison of the total votes polled in the six Assembly seats of the Palghar Lok Sabha seat in the 2014 state elections to that of the Lok Sabha bypoll held last month shows the Sena’s vote share has gone up in the area. [caption id=“attachment_3848273” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Uddhav Thackeray. PTI[/caption] The Sena did not fight the April-May 2014 Lok Sabha poll from Palghar as part of its seat-sharing arrangement with the ally BJP, which won the seat. However, there was no alliance between them for the October 2014 Assembly polls. The Uddhav Thackeray-led party had contested all the six Assembly seats falling under the Lok Sabha constituency — Dahanu (ST), Vikramgad (ST), Palghar (ST), Boisar (ST), Vasai and Nalasopara. Of these, the Sena won just one Assembly seat — Palghar (ST). The Sena had polled a total of 1,82,343 votes in the six seats in 2014, while in the 28 May Lok Sabha bypoll, the party candidate secured 2,43,210 votes in these segments, a rise of 60,867 votes compared to the state polls held four years back. Interestingly, the BJP suffered a loss in the voting percentage though it managed win the Lok Sabha seat. In 2014, the BJP got 5,33,201 votes in the Palghar Lok Sabha election, while in the recent bypoll, it got 2,72,782 votes, a decline of 2,60,419 votes. Besides the Sena, the Congress’ vote share went up by 39,757 this time as compared to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Sachin Shingda (a Congress leader who fought as an Independent) had polled just 7,957 votes. This time, his father Damodar Shingda contested the bypoll as the Congress nominee and bagged 47,714 votes. Besides, the CPI-M polled 71,887 votes in the Lok Sabha bypoll as compared to 76,890 in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, a loss of 5,003 votes. The vote count of the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA), a local outfit, also dropped by 70,843 votes - from 2,93,681 in 2014 to 2,22,838 now. Meanwhile, in the Bhandara-Gondiya Lok Sabha bypoll, the BJP lost the seat to the NCP despite winning five of the six Assembly seats that comprise the constituency, in the 2014 state elections. In the 2014 Lok Sabha poll, Nana Patole of the BJP had polled 6,06,129 votes and won the seat. He later quit the seat and the party, leading to the bypoll also held on 28 May. However, in the last month’s by-election, Hemant Patle of the BJP bagged 3,94,116 votes, bringing down the party’s vote count by 2,12,013. Patle lost to NCP’s Madhukar Kukde by a margin of 48,097 votes. Though the NCP won Bhandara-Gondia, its vote count dipped by 14,662. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, NCP’s Praful Patel had secured 4,56,875 votes, whereas this time around the party’s candidate Kukde got 4,42,213.