Graduates choose Dheeraj Lingade
| Date :04-Feb-2023 |
Amravati Bureau
DHEERAJ Lingade of Mahavikas Aghadi walked home victorious defeating sitting MLC and former Minister Dr Ranjit Patil by the margin of 3,382 votes in a closely contested election. Lingade got 46,344 votes in the Amravati Division Graduates’ Constituency Election. This was announced after the counting which lasted for nearly 34 hours finally completed late on Thursday night. The results came as a shocker for BJP’s Dr Ranjit Patil. Congress party activists, who were in jubilant mood since Thursday evening as Lingade took considerable lead, celebrated ‘jallosh’ at Rajkamal Chowk after the result were declared.
Victory certificate was handed over to Dheeraj Lingade in the presence of Pankaj Kumar, Election Observer; Dr Dilip Pandharpatte, Amravati Divisional Commissioner, and also the Election Returning Officer. Lingade’s wife
Padmaja, son Soham and Vedanta were present on the occasion. Out of 1,02,587 votes cast in the election, 93,852 votes were valid while 8,735 votes were invalid. Dr Ranjit Patil’s representative demanded a review of 8,735 invalid votes. Accordingly, these votes were re-counted. Out of them, 348 votes were considered valid. Accordingly, the total number of valid votes was determined as 94,200 and 8,387 votes were invalid. A quota of 47,101 votes was fixed for victory.
In the first preference count, Dheeraj Lingade got maximum 43,517 votes. Dr Patil got 41,171 votes. Anil Amalkar of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (4,188 votes), Dr Gaurav R. Gavai (241), Anil Vaktu Thaware (26), Anant Chaudhary (79), Arun Ramrao Sarnaik (1542), Adv. Anand Ravindra Rathod (383), Dhanraj Shende (23), Adv. Dhananjay Tote (69), Nilesh Pawar (Raje) (14), Patil Upendra Babarao (66), Sharad Patil Zambare (421), Shyam Prajapati (208), Dr. Praveen Chaudhary (1695), Praveen Bondre (45), Bharti Dabhade (216), Madhuri Dahare (93), Sandesh Ranveer (43), Laxmikant Tadse (14), Vikesh Gawale (51), Suhas Thakare (25) and Sandeep Meshram (70).
As none of the candidate completed the quota set for victory, the elimination round started and the candidates who got lowest number of votes in those rounds were eliminated and their second preferencial votes were counted. During this counting, Nilesh Pawar (Raje), Laxmikant Tadse, Dhanraj Shende, Suhas Thakare, Anil Thaware, Sandesh Ranveer, Pravin Bondre, Vikesh Gawale, Upendra Patil, Adv. Dhananjay Tote, Sandeep Meshram, Anant Chaudhary, Madhuri Dahare, Shyam Prajapati, Dr. Gaurav Gavai, Bharti Dabhade, Adv. Anand Ravindra Rathod, Sharad Zambare Patil, Arun Saranaik, Dr. Praveen Chaudhary and Anil Omkar Amalkar were disqualified sequentially according to their low number of votes. Among the remaining two candidates, highest number of 46,344 votes were won by Dheeraj Lingade while Dr Ranjit Patil got 42,962 votes.
On Thursday, Amravati Graduate Constituency Election counting began from 8 am at Nemani Godown on Badnera Road. The process lasted for 34 hours. Out of 265 postal ballots in the election, 73 ballots were canceled due to lack of affidavit, signature, attestation, not in sealed envelope and other reasons.
Congress Party leaders and activists along with NCP and Shiv-Sena leaders and activists celebrated ‘jallosh’ at Rajkamal Chowk under leadership of Dr Sunil Deshmukh, Milind Chimote and Vilas Ingole. Jallosh also celebrated under the leadership of Sanjay Khodke, State Vice-President of NCP at his contact office at Railway Station Chowk. As many as 8,387 votes were declared in valid. Taking into account the fact that these voters were graduates the figure is quite high. As per information, about 3,000 to 4,000 votes had only number 2 preference with no first preference. Political pandit believe that this seemed like a well-planned strategy. This number of invalid votes played a crucial role in defeat of Dr Ranjit Patil.