Congress Upsets BJP in Nagpur as MVA Wins Three Council Seats

After more than 40 hours of counting, Congress candidate Abhijeet Wanjari beat BJP rival Sudhakar Kohale by 3,271 votes in Nagpur, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s home city. Wanjari won 67,231 votes to Kohale’s 63,960, holding a seat the BJP had long treated as a stronghold. His win helped the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi take three of five Maharashtra Legislative Council seats^4,18.

The three wins came in the graduates’ seats of Nagpur, Pune and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. Congress held Nagpur, while Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) candidates won in Pune and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. The ruling Mahayuti alliance, made up of the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP, took both teachers’ seats: the BJP won in Pune, and Shiv Sena held Amravati^3,11. The result left the ruling alliance with two seats and the opposition with three.

Those two seats have led to public blame-trading within the ruling alliance. BJP spokesperson Navnath Ban accused Shiv Sena of failing to keep its promises in Pune and Nagpur. He said its last-minute support for independent candidate Sachin Sanap in Pune hurt unity. Ban also accused Shiv Sena minister Abdul Sattar of campaigning against the NCP in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. BJP leaders have called for the alliance to examine why it fell short. The Nagpur loss also raises questions about the BJP’s appeal to graduates and its choice of candidate^2,4.

These questions matter because the five contests showed a split between graduate and teacher voters, as well as tensions among parties expected to campaign together. BJP minister Nitesh Rane said the partners should have campaigned as one force. NCP minister Chhagan Bhujbal called the result a warning and urged the coalition to understand why voters were moving away^5,10. The BJP’s central leaders are set to seek an explanation from Maharashtra party president Ravindra Chavan. Fadnavis, Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde and NCP leader Sunetra Pawar are expected to meet to discuss the setback^10,13.