Nashik: Akshay Kardile of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured a resounding victory in the Rahuri assembly bypoll in Ahilyanagar district, defeating Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) candidate Govind Mokate by a margin of 1,12,587 votes. The results were declared on Monday.
Kardile led from the counting of postal ballots and maintained a commanding edge throughout the process. After 17 of the 27 rounds of counting, his lead became unassailable. Kardile secured nearly 1.4 lakh votes, while Mokate managed only 27,506 votes.
Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, the Ahilyanagar district guardian minister and Water Resources Development (WRD) minister, attributed the victory to BJP's dominance in the constituency, the hard work of party workers, and the benefits of central and state government welfare schemes.
The byelection was necessitated following the death of sitting BJP MLA Shivaji Kardile last year. BJP had initially attempted to have the election held unopposed. Although that effort did not succeed initially, senior BJP politicians, including state party chief Ravindra Chavan and Vikhe Patil, later met NCP (SP) functionary and former minister Prajakt Tanpure. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also requested Tanpure to respect Maharashtra's tradition, following which Tanpure withdrew from the race. NCP (SP) eventually fielded Govind Mokate, a longtime political rival of former MLA late Shivaji Kardile. A total of seven candidates contested the bypoll, though the contest was largely bipolar between BJP and NCP (SP).
Santosh Cholke of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) secured 5,690 votes, while rebel independent candidate Raosaheb Kheware polled 7,299 votes.
After being declared elected, Kardile said the verdict reflected the goodwill earned by his late father during more than three decades of public service. "Voters have placed similar trust in me, and I will serve them all my life," he said.
Minister Girish Mahajan also welcomed BJP's performance, linking Kardile's victory in Rahuri with Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar's win in Baramati. "We were pressing for an unopposed election in Baramati, but failed for some reason. Yet Sunetra Pawar won the election with a record number of votes. Similarly, in Rahuri, BJP's Akshay Kardile also won the election. We take every election seriously and campaign accordingly. The works done by the state government yielded results for us," said Mahajan.
