Teachers after casting their votes for MLC election at Kolhapur’s Main Rajaram School booth
Kolhapur: The estimated voter turnout in the Pune division MLC polls on Friday stood at 62.8% for the graduates’ constituency and 85.9% for the teachers’ constituency. Voting for the graduates’ constituency was held at 741 polling booths, while polling for the teachers’ constituency was conducted at 310 booths across Pune, Solapur, Sangli, Kolhapur and Satara districts. Of the 3,88,019 registered voters in the graduates’ constituency, as many as 2,43,611 cast their votes by the time polling closed at 4pm. In the teachers’ constituency, 53,185 of the 61,940 registered voters exercised their franchise. In the teachers’ constituency, Solapur led with 13,619 voters, followed by Pune (13,135), Kolhapur (10,899), Satara (8,451) and Sangli (7,081).
In the graduates’ constituency, BJP ’s Smita Jadhav, an educationist and media owner, faced NCP (SP)’s Harshada Deshmukh Jadhav, an educationist and daughter of former IAS officer Prabhakar Deshmukh. Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Sunil Modi was also in the fray. The teachers’ constituency had a four-cornered contest involving BJP’s Kaustubh Gavade, sitting Congress MLC Jayant Asgaonkar and two independents — Shiv Sena-backed Sachin Sanap and Solapur’s Dattatray Sawant. Independent candidate Sachin Sanap, NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule, MLA Rohit Pawar, Congress state president Harshwardhan Sapkal and several others took to their social media demanding action by Election Commission of India for violation of Model Code of Conduct.