Pune: Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena’s Shivtare Wins by 24,188 Votes, Defeats Jagtap and Zende
Pune: Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena's Shivtare Wins by 24,188 Votes, Defeats Jagtap and Zende.
Vijay Shivtare, a former minister from the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, won against Indian National Congress MLA Sanjay Jagtap and Sambhaji Zende from the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) by a margin of 24,188 votes.
The contest was anticipated to be challenging for Shivtare, as Zende, who was part of the same alliance, was expected to divide the votes. However, Zende failed to secure more than 50,000 votes. Political analysts had predicted that Jagtap would come out on top due to the expected vote split between Shivtare and Zende, but Shivtare maintained a lead from the very first round and won comfortably.
Jagtap, the sitting MLA, faced considerable anti-incumbency sentiment, especially because of the delays in the approval of the new international airport in Purandar, a project that was pushed forward by Mahayuti leader Murlidhar Mohol rather than Jagtap.
With a total of 451,000 voters and a turnout of 60.02%, the constituency’s average voter participation worked in favor of Shivtare, who has now been elected as their leader for the next five years.
