Congress, Sena bag Council seats in Mumbai; BJP man loses

Congress candidate Bhai Jagtap and Shiv Sena's Ramdas Kadam were today declared elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Council from the local self-government bodies constituency. BJP nominee Madhu Chavan was defeated.

The development comes two days after former state BJP president Nitin Gadkari was named party president. Chavan did not get the second preference votes of Sena.

"The numbers were stacked against Chavan but it would have been in keeping with the alliance dharma if Sena had cast second preference votes to him," a BJP leader told PTI.

Biennial elections for eight Council seats were held on December 18. Congress nominee Amrish Patel has already been declared elected unopposed from the Dhule-Nandurbar local bodies. The elections were necessitated as the sitting members in these constituencies retire on January one, 2010.

The constituencies where the elections were held are Mumbai (2), one each in Solapur, Kolhapur, Ahmednagar, Nagpur and Akola-Washim-Buldhana.

Apart from the biennial elections, by-poll to Nashik graduates constituency was also held as sitting MLC of BJP Prakash Sonawane was elected to the Lok Sabha earlier this year.
His term was to end on December 5, 2010. In Nagpur, Congress candidate Rajendra Mulak defeated sitting BJP MLC Ashok Mankar by four votes.

In Ahmednagar, Independent candidate Arun Jagtap defeated Congress candidate Jayant Sasane by 40 votes. In Solapur, NCP candidate Deepak Salunkhe defeated Congress rebel Kalyan Kale by 81 votes.

In Mumbai, Congress candidate Bhai Jagtap and Shiv Sena candidate Ramdas Kadam won the Council elections.

In Kolhapur, Congress Mahadev Mahadik defeated Jayant Patil of Jan Swarajya Party. In Buldhana, Shiv Sena's Gopikishan Bajoria won by 347 votes against NCP's Radheshyam Chandak.