Pall of gloom in MVA camp after loss in MLC polls

Nagpur: A pall of gloom hung over the Congress camp after the crushing defeat in the biennial MLC elections on Tuesday. Hardly any of its leaders were visible at the counting centre.
A majority of them refused to speak, directing all calls to MPCC president Nana Patole and animal husbandry minister Sunil Kedar. They said Patole and Kedar were responsible for the fiasco of granting ticket to former BJP corporator Ravindra Bhoyar, and later supporting independent Mangesh Deshmukh, just 12 hours before the polls.
Bhoyar, who received just one vote, told the media he wanted to search for the elusive voter who voted for him.He had earlier told TOI that he would not vote for himself and would follow the party’s whip. Kedar refused to take TOI’s calls for comments.
Patole, who accompanied Deshmukh, said despite having numbers, BJP took their public representatives on a sojourn, which shows they do not trust their own voters. “We already had fewer votes, still we fought courageously and unitedly. On the other hand, their voters were confined to unknown places, harassed and not allowed to speak to anyone. Instead of going gaga over the victory, the BJP should address issues like rising inflation, unemployment, and farmers’ problems on priority.”
Accusing the saffron party of rigging the Nagpur and Akola-Buldhana-Washim elections, NCP chief national spokesperson Nawab Malik demanded that a law should be enacted to stop illegal practices of buying voters in legislative council. “When cross voting took place in Rajya Sabha, a legislation was brought into force to vote only as per the party’s whip. If the state government has the power, we will legislate. If it does not, then the central government should enact it in the Parliament so that all such polls are held in a transparent manner. We will make such a recommendation to the Centre.”
Asserting that this victory was not a very big one for the BJP, city Congress chief Vikas Thakre reminded the opposition of its shock defeat in the graduates constituency elections last year. “The win is not a certificate that the general public has faith in the BJP. It was not a direct vote by the people, but just by 559 elected or nominated representatives. This is no big deal if the party managed to retain the seat, as they already had numbers on their side. Over a lakh educated voters of the graduates constituency from the region had already rejected the saffron party and the trend would continue in the civic elections next year.”
Accepting the defeat, Congress chief spokesperson Atul Londhe pointed out that their candidate was poor, while the opposition candidate was financially very strong. “Despite having 90 more votes than MVA, they had to flee the city with their voters. They also rigged the polls, which is a moral defeat for them. They should not forget their string of defeats in the zilla parishad polls last year and recent bypolls from the grand old party. All MVA leaders and office bearers tried their best winning the seat. We will certainly introspect and come out stronger in future polls,” he said.