Maharashtra Gram Panchayat polls: Setback for some senior leaders, triumph for others

Senior NCP leader Eknath Khadse managed an edge in Kothali Gram Panchayat in Muktainagar taluka in Jalgaon district. Khadse’s panel won six seats out of the total 11 seats. The panel supported by Khadse was contesting against a Shiv Sena panel, which won five seats. Khadse’s daughter Rohini said, “The victory symbolises people’s confidence in Khadse.”

At Chondi Gram Panchayat, former BJP minister Ram Shinde suffered a setback as NCP MLA Rohit Pawar’s panel won seven out of total nine seats. In the 2019 Assembly elections, Pawar had defeated Shinde from Jamkhed constituency in Ahmednagar district.

A panel backed by NCP leader and state minister Dhananjay Munde defeated a panel supported by his estranged cousin and BJP leader Pankaja Munde in his home turf of Parli Gram Panchayat in Beed district. His panel won six out of seven seats in the Gram Panchayat.

In Ahmednagar district, senior BJP leader and former minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil was in for rude shock as his panel lost in the Gram Panchayat elections in his native village Loni. The rival Janardhan Ghogre panel, supported by Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena, won 13 seats out of total 17. Vikhe Patil’s panel had been in power in the Loni Gram Panchayat for the last 20 years.

The Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, led by Prakash Ambedkar, dented the political base of former BJP minister Sudhir Mungantiwar in his Assembly constituency Ballarpur in district Chandrapur. The VBA panel bagged nine seats out of 17 in Visapur Gram Panchayat.

The Republican Party of India, lead by Union minister Ramdas Athawale, won Bageholli Gram Panchayat in Akkalkot in district Solapur. The RPI panel, led by Vijay Gaikwad, bagged all seven seats against a panel of the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena.