Straight fight likely in Chikhli

 

 

Chikhli Assembly constituency may again witness a straight fight between BJP’s Shweta Mahale and Congress’ Rahul Bondre. Recently, Mahale’s name in the BJP’s list of candidates came as little surprise to people as she is already considered a formidable candidate. The Chikhli Assembly Constituency is known as the political capital of the district. The Bharatiya Janata Party had won 3 successive elections in 1995, 1999, 2004 and then Rahul Bondre of Congress won for two consecutive terms in 2009 and 2014. In 2019, however, Rahul Bondre was defeated by Shweta Mahale. She polled a good number of votes. In 2009, a total of 12 candidates stood for Chikhli Legislative Assembly elections. In the constituency of 2,34,514 voters, some 1,56,444 voters exercised their right to vote, taking the poll percentage to 61.71 pc. Rahul Bondre had secured 76,465 votes (48.88 pc) and defeated BJP’s Prakashbuwa Janjal who polled 48,549 votes (31.30 pc). Bharat Bondre of Swarajya Shakti, won 21,852 votes while Sanjay Ingle, an independent, secured only 2,523 votes. In 2014 again, Congress’ Rahul Bondre won polling 61,581 votes (33.85pc), defeating BJP’s Suresh Kabutare. Kabutare has scored 47,520 votes (26.12 pc).

 

 

Drupadrao Sawale of the NCP polled 33,699 votes (18.53 pc). Pratap Singh Rajput of Shiv Sena won 26,929 (14.8 pc) votes. The constutency, then had 2,65,527 voters out of which 1,81,903 exercised their franchise. In the 2019 election, Chikhli constituency had 2,95,018 voters out of which 1,94,182 voters exercised their right to vote. The polling percentage, thus was 65.82 percent. As many as 11 candidates were in fray including sitting Congress MLA Rahul Bondre who was eying a hatrick. The victory, however, was for BJP’s Shweta Vidyadhar Mahale, who had polled around 48.16 percent votes. She got 93,515 votes against sitting Bondre who 86,705 (44.65 pc) votes. Ashok Suradkar of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi won 9,661 votes (4.98 pc) votes while Parvinabi Syed Haroon of Bahujan Samaj Party polled only 1,109 votes (0.57).