Two wards of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), namely Ward No.15 and Ward No.29, have been traditional strongholds of the BJP. Leads gained by BJP candidates in these two wards have been instrumental in helping the party retain its hold over the Kasba Assembly seat in the last 28 years.
It was no coincidence then that BJP chose Hemant Rasane, who represents Ward No.15 as a corporator, to contest the bypoll. However, when the results came out on Thursday, it became clear that these two wards had bucked the trend this time around, and thus sealed Rasane’s fate.
Of the two wards, Ward No.15, which comprises Sadashiv Peth, Narayan Peth and Shaniwar Peth, is home to 71,756 voters. In the 2019 Assembly polls, BJP candidate Mukta Tilak received a lead of 21,000 votes over her rival, Congress’s Aravind Shinde. In the Kasba bypoll, although the total votes cast in the area were 4,000 less than 2019, the BJP was hopeful of getting a lead of at least 15,000 votes.
In reality, the lead that Rasane got from Ward No.15 was a mere 7,256 votes, which was not enough to tide over the advantage that his rival and eventual winner, Congress’s Ravindra Dhangekar, enjoyed in the other areas. In fact, after the counting of votes from Ward No.15 was over in the sixth and seventh rounds, BJP leaders started to slip out from the counting centre, sensing that the game was over for their candidate.
The story was no different in Ward No.29 comprising Navi Peth and part of Dutta Wadi area, another BJP stronghold due to the popularity of its corporator Dheeraj Ghate. The ward was expected to give it a lead of at least 4,000 votes. However, the ballots not only failed to give the BJP candidate an advantage, it ended up adding to Dhangekar’s lead. In Ward No.29, Rasane managed to get only 8,478 votes while Dhangekar managed to pocket 10,075, a lead of 1,594 votes.
The BJP leadership has indicated that the defeat in this key bypoll will lead to analysis and action against the corporators who failed to get the votes for the party candidate. Of the 24 corporators that were elected in 2017, 16 belong to the BJP while eight are shared between Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena.
