Barve recaptures Ramtek for Cong

Staff Reporter

Congress Party wrested back Ramtek parliamentary constituency as its candidate Shyamkumar Barve retrieved the coveted seat in Nagpur district from Shiv Sena by a big margin. He edged past Raju Parve by 76,768 votes. Parve had resigned from Umred assembly segment to contest the Lok Sabha election, but failed to make the mark on the big stage. For Barve, the victory is significant as his wife Rashmi, original nominee from Congress, got edged out of race owing to rejection of her caste validity. In a last minute twist in run upto election, Rashmi’s caste certificate was invalidated and thus Shyamkumar stepped in to became official party candidate. Ramtek parliamentary seat is reserved for Scheduled Caste. The last Congress candidate who won from Ramtek was its national General Secretary Mukul Wasnik in the year 2009. After that Ramtek was Shiv Sena bastion as their nominees won four consecutive elections, edging past the formidable candidates of Congress Party who were in the race at that time.

The credit for Congress’s victory would rest with Sunil Kedar, who also incidentally suffered a personal setback, as he single handedly steered the party’s campaign in Ramtek. In absence of any big leaders nor rally of big party guns, Kedar used the network of leaders and cadre in co-operative field and his hold on Zilla Parishad to tilt the balance in favour of his personal choice, Barve. Similarly, the united front of Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) ensured the smooth sailing for Congress nominee. Kedar, post his conviction in NDDCB case, was disqualified from Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. So in the end, the rejection of caste certificate of Rashmi Barve and Kedar’s conviction seemed to have tilted balance in favour of Shyamkumar, feels the political observers here. These two issues could have led to sympathy factor in favour of Barve who was contesting any election for first time in life. Till now Barve’s better half Rashmi was the family’s face in the political arena. She was also President of Nagpur Zilla Parishad.

Another significant factor that played out in Ramtek was that there was direct fight between Congress and Shiv Sena. The expected triangular fight did not take place as voters from the start were apprehensive and avoided playing the game of political parties and remained steadfast in avoiding division of votes, it seems from the end result. So the critical factor of Congress rebel Kishor Gajbhiye failed to work in favour of Parve. During the 2019 elections, Gajbhiye had significantly dented Congress candidate as he had won nearly four lakh votes that time and was placed third. This time in 2024 however, he was pushed to dismal fourth place as Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) bagged the third position. The flip flop on part of Gajbhiye, spurned the offer from Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) to be their nominee, seems to have proved detrimental for him.

The counting from Ramtek parliamentary constituency started at Kalamna Market Yard on Tuesday and from the start, the dominance of Barve was visible. Barve led from the first round itself and as the rounds moved ahead the lead also increased substantially. After conclusion of In the first round while Sena’s Raju Parve secured 24,403 votes while Congress’s Shyamkumar Barve got 28,064 votes giving him the edge of 3661 votes. At the end of counting, Barve saw his led reduce to 76,768 which however hardly made any difference as he still won comfortably. At end of counting total votes polled by Barve was 6,13,025 as against 5,36,257. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Sandip Meshram was distant third with vote count of 26,098.