Pune: Most of the disgruntled Mahayuti politicians, who switched their loyalty after being impressed by MVA’s successful performance in the recent Lok Sabha poll, have been knocked out of the race to the assembly. By a twist of fate, many MVA deserters manged to shine under the ruling alliance’s banners, assembly poll results declared on Saturday show.
The biggest names among the turncoats who lost the election include Harshvardhan Patil. The former state cooperation minister left BJP and joined NCP (SP) upon realising that he was not going to get the ticket from Mahayuti for Indapur constituency. He was defeated, for third time, by NCP’s incumbent MLA Datta Bharne.
Similarly, a much-talked-about battle played out in Kolhapur’s Kagal where Pawar had poached Samarjeetsinh Ghatge from BJP to field him against NCP’s sitting MLA and cabinet minister Hasan Mushrif. In a tightly fought contest, Mushrif trounced Ghatge by 11,581 votes.
Another interesting fight was in Vidarbha region’s Aheri seat where Bhagyashree Atram lost to her father, Dharamaraobaba Atram, in an NCP vs NCP fight. A few months before the date of assembly poll was announced, Bhagyashree had changed her allegiance to senior Pawar’s faction from the one led by latter’s rebel nephew and deputy CM Ajit Pawar.
Among Mahayuti partners, NCP inducted MLA Zeeshan Siddique from Congress and fielded him from Bandra East. Zeeshan failed to save his bastion from Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Varun Sardesai.
However, not all the turncoats faced defeat. In Bhor, three-time Congress MLA Sangram Thopte was defeated by Shankar Mandekar, who recently shifted from Shiv Sena (UBT) to NCP.