Maharashtra minister and BJP leader Pravin Pote today retained the Amravati local bodies seat in the Legislative Council biennial polls even as the Shiv Sena made considerable gains, winning two of the three seats it contested.
Counting of votes was held today for five of the six local bodies seats where biennial elections to the Maharashtra Legislative Council were held on Monday.
The ruling BJP and the Shiv Sena had contested the polls in alliance. The opposition Congress and the NCP had also tied-up for the biennial polls.
Apart from Amravati, the BJP bagged Wardha-Chandrapur- Gadchiroli local bodies seat.
The Shiv Sena won the Nashik and Parbhani-Hingoli local bodies seats.
The NCP could retain only Raigad-Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg and lost the Nashik seat to the Sena.
The Congress fared poorly in all the three seats it contested -- Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadhchiroli, Parbhani-Hingoli and Amravati.
The counting for Osmanabad-Beed-Latur local bodies seat was deferred by the Election Commission due to a court order pertaining to suspension of some local bodies members in Beed district.
In Amravati seat, Pravin Pote, the BJP candidate and the district's guardian minister, swept the poll with a thumping victory over his Congress rival Anil Madhogadhiya.
Reducing the fight to a 'no contest', Pote secured 458 of the 488 votes polled. The Congress nominee did not find much favour as he got only 17 votes.
Three voters opted for None of the Above (NOTA) option while ten votes were declared invalid.
The Shiv Sena and a couple of local outfits had lent their support to Pote.
Pote, who had first won the seat in 2012, thanked the voters for his win.
"I thank all the voters for reposing their faith in me. It is a vote to the BJP leadership in the state and at the Centre," he said soon after the result was announced.
In Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli, BJP's Ramdas Ambatkar won by a margin of 37 votes, defeating his nearest Congress rival Indra Kumar Saraf.
According to a release issued by the district information office, there were 1,059 voters of whom 1,056 exercised their franchise while 37 of the polled votes were declared invalid.
Ambatkar secured 528 votes while Saraf could muster only 491 votes.
In Nashik, the Shiv Sena wrested the seat from the NCP.
The Sena candidate, Narendra Darade, won the election by defeating NCP's Shivaji Sahane by a margin of 193 votes.
Jaywant Jadhav of the NCP represented the seat earlier.
Darade polled 412 votes while Sahane got 219.
There were total 644 voters and 13 votes were declared invalid.
In Parbhani-Hingoli, Shiv Sena's Viplove Bajoria won the seat by defeating Congress' Suresh Deshmukh.
In Raigad-Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, Aniket Tatkare of the NCP defeated Rajiv Sabale of the Shiv Sena.
With today's results, the BJP's tally in the 78-member Upper House remained the same at 18, while the NCP's came down to 21 from the earlier 23.
The Congress' number came down to 18 from the earlier 19 while the Shiv Sena's tally went up to 11 from nine.
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