Congress struggles to wrest Marathwada back from BJP-Sena
In Maharashtra's Marathwada
region, Dalit and Muslim votes will prove a decisive factor in at
least four of the eight Lok Sabha constituencies.
Every possible effort is being made by all the political
parties, especially the Congress and the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, to
tilt these votes in their favour.
The Congress with its allies, the Republican Party of India,
the Samajwadi Party, the newly floated Maharashtra Vikas
Party and Lal Nishan Paksha, is optimistic that it will succeed in securing 80
per cent of Dalit and Muslim votes.
Incidentally, the number of Dalits and Muslims is much
more in Aurangabad, Hingoli, Nanded and Parbhani.
In 1996, the Congress received a
major jolt when all its candidates, except in Latur and Nanded, were
defeated by the Shiv Sena and BJP in six
constituencies in the region.
Aurangabad, Beed, Hingoli, Jalna, Osmanabad and
Parbani, which were considered Congress stronghold, fell to the Sena-BJP alliance.
In Aurangabad, Shiv Sena candidate Pradeep Jaiswal
defeated Suresh Patil of the Congress, capturing over 300,000
votes against Patil's 186,000 votes. Avinash Dolas of the BRP-Bahujan Mahasangh
secure 88,900 votes and Independent nominee Moreshwar Save, who was elected
as the Sena candidate in
1991, got 42,927 votes in 1996.
Suresh Patil has not been given the Congress
ticket this time, which has instead gone to Ramkrishna
Patil, a former MLA who is
close to S B Chavan. The former home minister also got the Nanded ticket for his son-in-law, Bhaskarrao
Patil. Ramakrishna Patil,
who is chairman of the sugar co-operative
factory in Vaijapur, faces the Sena's Jaiswal.
In Jalna, former MP Ankushrao Tope's son Rajesh was pitted against BJP candidate Uttamsingh Pawar in the last election, and lost by about 11,000 votes.
Pawar will now face Dhyaneswhar Bangar of the
Congress, a supporter of
Chavan and Ankushrao Tope.
In Parbhani, Shiv Sena candidate Suresh Jadhav -- who defeated his Congress rival Ashok Deshmukh by about 125,000 votes in 1996 -- faces Suresh
Varpurkar this time. Deshmukh had contested the 1991 election as
a Sena candidate and defeated Janata Dal candidate Prataprao
Bangar. He later left the Sena and joined the Congress.
Hingoli, which remained a Congress
baston till 1989 and was represented by senior Congress
leader Uttamrao Rathod for three terms, went to Shiv Sena candidate
Vilasrao Gundewar in 1991 and has remained with that party since then. In 1996, Gundewar
defected to the Congress, but lost to the Sena's
Shivaji Mane. Mane this time is challenged by Suryakanta Patil,
the Congress women's leader.
Dalit and Banjara voters were decisive in this
constituency, and Mane had established a good reputation among them.
Patil, formerly a Rajya Sabha MP, has good contacts with womenfolk.
Latur and Nanded -- which have always been retained by the Congress -- are considered prestigious constituencies because of their presiding party spirits, Shivraj Patil, Lok Sabha speaker between 1991 and 1996, and S B Chavan respectively.
Patil once again faces the BJP's Dr Gopalrao Patil who lost in 1996. The Congressman then got 279,775 votes, Dr Patil secured 200,403 votes, while the Janata Dal's Bapu Kaldate took away 138,725 votes.
Both Dr Patil and Kaldate were then Rajya Sabha members.
Kaldate is out of the fray this time so it is a straight fight between Shivraj Patil and Gopalrao Patil.
In Nanded, Gangadhar Kunturkar, who won in 1996,
has been replaced by S B Chavan's son-in-law Bhaskarrao Patil.
The BJP candidate is Dhanajirao Deshmukh
who was defeated by Kunturkar in the last election.
Osmanabad is a reserved constituency which returned Shivaji Kamble
(Shiv Sena) in the last election. He defeated Arvind
Kamble of the Congress. Both Kambles are in the fray this time too.
In all the eight constituencies, the number of
contenders has decreased considerably compared to the last
election. The number of women aspirants have also come down, from nine to two.
Suryakanta Patil, the Congress nominee from Hingoli, and
Independent Vimal Sukhdeo from Aurangabad are the only women in the contest.
The number of Independents has also reduced. In Jalna, there were 18 Independents in the fray last time compared to two in 1998. In Beed their number has come
down from 22 to three, in Parbhani from 19 to two, in Osmanabad
from 17 to four, in Nanded from 18 to eight and in Latur from 20 to
four. There is no Independent contesting from Hingoli.
UNI in Aurangabad
Elections '98
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