DURING THE Lok Sabha polls generally, the difference of votes between the winning and losing candidate is in lakhs considering each Parliamentary constituency has an average 12 – 15 lakhs population per seat.
However, during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, there were 11 seats where the number of votes between the winning and losing candidate was less than a lakh.
In some seats, the difference was less than 5,000 votes as per analysis of the 2019 Lok Sabha election results of the 48 seats in the state.
In most of these cases, the difference between the two candidates has been less than votes polled by the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) or an independent candidate.
As per the data, the closest gap between two candidates was in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (earlier Aurangabad) Parliamentary constituency, where the fight went right down to the wire with AIMIM candidate Imtiaz Jaleel defeating his rival undivided Shiv Sena candidate Chandrakant Khaire by a mere 4,492 votes.
While the difference between journalist-turned politician Jaleel (3.89 lakh votes) and Sena veteran and four-term MP Khaire (3.84 lakh votes) was the closest, a major factor in the hair-splitting difference was independent candidate and former MLA Harshwardhan Jadhav who secured 2.83 lakh votes, much more than the difference between Jaleel and Khaire.
This time around, however, it will be a four-cornered fight as Jaleel has again been re-nominated by the AIMIM.
While in 2019, the Hyderabad-based party AIMIM had an alliance with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), this time around the party is going alone which will prevent consolidation of Muslim and Dalit votes that had helped Jaleel last time.
Jaleel will face the same rival Khaire who was announced as the MVA candidate by Uddhav Thackeray. Khaire has said that it will be his last election and expressed confidence about emerging victorious after losing narrowly in 2019.
From the Mahayuti, the Shiv Sena led by CM Eknath Shinde has announced Sandipan Bhumre, Employment Guarantee and Horticulture Minister as the Mahayuti candidate.
The next close contest in 2019 was in the Raigad constituency which saw the undivided NCP leader Sunil Tatkare defeat his rival Anant Geete, former Union Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises of Shiv Sena by 31,438.
This time around, it will be the old rivalry again as both have been nominated by NCP (Ajit Pawar) and Shiv Sena (UBT).
While Raigad has been considered a Sena bastion in the past, Shiv Sena (UBT) will have a tougher fight on its hands as MLAs from three of the six Assembly constituencies under Raigad seat went with Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena after the 2022 break-up, one MLA each with Ajit Pawar-led NCP and BJP — all from Mahayuti, and only one MLA is with Shiv Sena (UBT).
The next three closest fights were seen in Amravati, Nanded and Parbhani – that voted in the second phase in this election on April 26 – which had a difference of 36,951, 40,148 and 42,199 votes respectively. Following this, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli seats which voted in the first phase this year saw close contests with a difference of 44763 and 77526 votes respectively between the winning and losing candidate in 2019.
Madha seat in Solapur that goes for polling in the third phase saw a difference of 85,764 votes between BJP’s Ranjitsinha Naik Nimbalkar – the winning candidate and losing candidate NCP’s Sanjay Shinde during the 2019 polls. The VBA candidate in this seat Adv Vijayrao More polled 51,532 still lower the difference between the two sides.
This time too, the sitting MP Ranjitsinh Naik Nimbalkar has been fielded by the BJP while he will be opposed by NCP(SP)’s Dhairyasheel Mohite Patil, who moved from BJP to NCP before the elections.
The family, headed by former deputy chief minister Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, Dhairyasheel’s uncle, has supported his move, although his son and Dhariyasheel’s cousin Ranjeetsinh is a BJP MLC.
Following this, the Palghar seat reserved for Scheduled Tribes that will poll during the fifth phase saw a difference of 88,883 votes between Shiv Sena’s Rajendra Gavit (5,80,479) and Bahujan Vikas Aaghadi’s Baliram Jadhav (4,91,596) with 29,479 votes going to NOTA.
This time around, while Gavit who sided with Shinde Sena when the party split is likely to be the Mahayuti candidate, Sena UBT has named Bharati Kamdi, former president of the Palghar Zilla Parishad as its candidate.
Interestingly, BVA led by MLA Hitendra Thakur said that his party too will be contesting the polls making it a three-cornered fight.
The tribal dominated Nandurbar that will be going to polls during the fourth phase saw a difference of 95,629 seats between the two candidates.
While Dr Heena Gavit of BJP won with 6,39,136 votes she defeated advocate KC Padavi of the Congress who won 5,43,507 seats.
Gavit, a medical graduate and daughter of senior leader Vijaykumar Gavit, first contested from Nandurbar in 2014 and won, a feat she repeated in 2019. It will be interesting to see if she manages a hattrick in the face of resistance she faces from local BJP leaders and Shiv Sena (Shinde).
The last seat that saw a difference of less than a lakh was the Hatkanangle seat — covering Kolhapur and Sangli — which too goes to polls during the third phase and saw a difference of 96,039 seats.
During the 2019 elections, Dhairyasheel Sambhajirao Mane from the undivided Sena defeated Raju Shetti from the Swabhimani Paksha. The VBA candidate Aslam Sayyad won 1,23,419 seats, greater than the difference between the two parties.
This time around Mane has been named as the Shinde Sena candidate while Satyajeet Patil has been named as the Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate.
This means there will be four-cornered fight between Mane from Mahayuti, Patil from MVA, Shetti from Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana and Dadasaheb Patil who has been nominated from VBA.