Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) President Sharad Pawar said the Congress-led Mahagathbandhan in the state "respects" the peoples' verdict in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
"The results that have come out are unexpected. We accept the verdict. We shall analyse the outcome, increase our people-to-people contacts, and hope to do better next time. We thank the people for their support," Pawar told the media.
He pointed out that while the NCP has won at least four seats, the constituencies where it has lost are with "narrow margins", compared to the 2014 elections, "but a win is a win".
"Whether elections were fought under Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Manmohan Singh, there were no apprehensions expressed about the polls. But this time, role of the Election Commission and the ruling party has been under a cloud of doubts. The outcome was very unexpected," Pawar said.
He admitted that the NCP was confident of bagging at least 11 seats, but after the defeat, the party has now started work for the upcoming (Assembly) elections.
The NCP has bagged four seats so far -- Supriya Sule-Pawar in Baramati, Marathi filmstar Amol Kolhe in Shirur, descendent of the Chhatrapati Shivaji's royal family, Chhatrapati Udayanraje P. Bhosale from Satara and Sunil Tatkare from Raigad, who defeated Shiv Sena's sole Union Cabinet Minister Anant Geete by a large margin.
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--IANS
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