Fight in Nagpur parliamentary constituency turned out to be one to one between heavyweight Nitin Gadkari and his challenger Nana Patole as from the lot of 16 about 14 candidates failed to save their deposit. Barring Patole, the other 14 candidates including that of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Wanchit Bahujan Aghadi (WBA) could not even make a splash leave alone to be counted. As per the formula, to save the deposit every contesting candidate had to poll 1/6 of total valid votes which in Nagpur was 11,87,215 and from that NOTA were 4578.
The only creditable factor for Congress during this year’s parliamentary election from Nagpur was that it managed to marginally reduce the winning margin of Gadkari. During last election Gadkari had wrested Nagpur seat from Congress with margin of 2,84,828 while in 2019 Lok Sabha election the difference of votes was 2,16,009. Fielding of Patole, a new face for voters, ensured that its supporters come out in numbers and he polled more votes that Vilas Muttemwar who had represented Nagpur four times in Lok Sabha.
A comparative analysis of top two candidates in Nagpur parliamentary constituency shows that Congress Party has managed to make its mark in Nagpur North Assembly alone Patole managed to secure lead over his formidable rival Gadkari. Congress gained 96,691 votes as against BJP’s 87,781, still the difference between the two is not that substantial.
In all other assembly segments, Gadkari managed to showcase BJP’s stronghold as everywhere the difference in vote share with his challenger Patole is quite wide margin. The highest difference between the two is in South-West segment that is incidentally represented by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and here Gadkari’s got 55,116 more votes. Patole secured about 65,069 as against Gadkari’s 1,20,185 votes. In Nagpur South segment Patole polled 71,421 while Gadkari marched ahead with 1,14,945, at Nagpur East again it was 60,071 and 1,35,451 respectively.
The other keenly watched constituency was Nagpur Central where Gadkari again scored over Patole by bagging 96,346 while latter got 73,849. Congress campaigners had pinned high hopes on Central segment in its bid to under cut the 2.45 lakh margin of Gadkari in 2014 elections but Patole could not make much dent as the response of voters was very lukewarm. Again in Nagpur West constituency also Gadkari polled 1,02,916 votes while Patole had to contend with 75,664.
Meanwhile, for Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the result is very shocking and indicative of lost ground, while Wanchit Bahujan Aghadi has made a statement as itscandidate managed to secure fourth position.BSP once known for having one of the best cadre failed to muster its strength and even failed to net any established politician wanting to make his mark in the election arena. Hence party fell on its own corporator Mohammad Jamal to put up a semblance of fight for sake of keeping party national status intact.
However Jamal his own could hardly make a mark owing to lack of ground support from party workers.During the previous two parliamentary polls, BSP had managed to rope in candidates from other parties who brought along their vote and this way party's managed to draw upto one lakh vote. Even otherwise Nagpur constituency did have nearly one to two lakh floating votes that for a long was polled by socialist party candidates. These votes were going to BSP but with rise of Wanchit Bahujan Aghadi it ceded its political space to the new outfit.
But Wanchit was stitched up by Adv. Prakash Ambedkar at last minute and despite having little base, it managed to poll about 26,128 votes. Its candidate Manohar alias Sagar Dabrase gained maximum attention during the run-up
