Aurangabad Zilla Parishad president poll to be held again

AURANGABAD: The election to the Aurangabad Zilla Parishad president’s post was postponed to Saturday after clashes over the number of votes both key candidates had received. One member had raised her hand twice, once in favour of each candidate.
Returning officer and additional collector Bhanudas Palwe said it had become difficult to count votes amid the commotion in the meeting hall and the process would be held afresh on Saturday.The election to the ZP vice president post would also be held on Saturday.
To a question whether the three ZP members, who were absent on Friday, would be allowed to cast their votes on Saturday, Palwe said the decision would also be taken on Saturday. There would be no change in the candidates for the president’s post, he said.
Three candidates were in the fray, including outgoing president Devyani Dongaonkar of Shiv Sena. She chose to contest the election putting the Shiv Sena in a fix. The BJP had fielded Anuradha Chavan, while Maha Vikas Aghadi nominee was Meena Shelke of Congress. Dongaonkar rebelled after Sena decided to support Shelke.
The BJP is the largest party in the 61-member ZP with 23 members, followed by Shiv Sena (17), Congress (16) and NCP (3) and a member each of Democratic Republican Party and MNS. On Friday, when the voting began, Dongaokar and Shelke received more than the share of their party’s votes each, indicating there was cross voting. Moreover, one member raised her hand twice leading to confusion, sources said.
Vice president of the state BJP, Bhagwat Karad, who was among those handling the zilla parishad election, claimed they had received a call from “Abdul Sattar (Sena minister) that his group of 14 members and BJP could contest the election together and win. We agreed,’’ he said.
“When the election started, one of ZP member raised her hands twice — for Dongaonkar and Shelke. We sought that either her vote be counted in the favour of our candidate or be declared invalid. We hope to wrest the president’s post from the Maha Vikas Aghadi,” said Karad.
Sena MLC Ambadas Danve, who was handling Sena affairs in the ZP president’s election, admitted that “Sattar’s support group in ZP did not vote in lines with Sena. We still hope to win the election on Saturday,” he said.
Sattar could not be contacted for his comment despite repeated attempts. The ZP premises had huge police deployment and they had to resort to mild lathicharge to rein in the supporters and enthusiasts from both the parties.