Having lost the battle, BJP insiders said the party will analyse whether its choice of candidate or miffed voters led to the debacle. Nagpur: A battle of prestige. Everyone, from BJP top leadership to its rank and file, repeated the line in the buildup to the Nagpur Graduates’ constituency election.
“About 9,000 voters cast me as the number two choice. Otherwise, those votes would have come to me in the first round itself, and I would have won,” he said, insisting that the party’s groundwork and campaigning were ‘perfect’.
Kohale said the biggest reason for his downfall was the system of counting in preferential voting. We will reflect on this now,” said Kohale. Yet this happened, I don’t know how,” he said. But thousands marking Kohale as second preference is a conspiracy,” Waghmare said.
The battle of prestige phrase was used extensively as chief minister Devendra Fadnavis , union minister Nitin Gadkari , revenue minister Chandrshekhar Bawankule and other leaders campaigned aggressively in each of the six assembly constituencies in the city. The question of candidate choice comes from the rebellion BJP faced. Gadkari’s confidant and former MLC Anil Sole entered the fray as an independent after being denied the ticket. He promised not to campaign only after Fadnavis visited his home to resolve the issue. But with the results now out, party insiders are wondering whether it was the Sole factor or overall discontent among voters which led to their candidate Kohale’s defeat. In the same breath, he expressed surprise at how graduate voters could have made errors while writing choices on the ballot. “It seems many voters made a mistake, at least I feel so. It is a big mistake. instead of first, he stopped short of saying so While there were murmurs of voters purposely putting Kohale as second preference. “Many of these voters are BJP workers, and they were given training on how to fill out the form. “Thousands of people wrote number two against Kohale’s name. These are educated people, they know the consequences of their actions. If a few voters did it, we could have called it a mistake. He also advised BJP to introspect on the votes independent candidate Nitesh Karale received in localities considered favourable to the party.