Mumbai: Marking yet another win on its turf, BJP has managed to capture Osmanabad-Beed-Latur seat, which went to polls along with five other Legislative Council seats in Maharashtra. Party candidate Suresh Dhas has won the seat dealing a major blow to Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and its leader Dhananjay Munde.
The electoral contest turned into a prestige battle between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Women and Child Welfare Minister Pankaja Munde, and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by her cousin Dhananjay Munde, who is also the Leader of Opposition in the Council.
The Osmanabad-Beed-Latur seat saw a contest between Suresh Dhas of the BJP and Ashok Jagdale, an independent supported by the NCP and Congress. The NCP had fielded Ramesh Karad, a former BJP worker and a close associate of state Rural Development Minister Pankaja Munde. The party found itself in a fix when Karad withdrew his nomination on the last day.
The NCP subsequently declared support for Jagdale as it could not nominate its own candidate. The other five constituencies which went to polls on May 21 are: Raigad-Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, Nashik, Parbhani-Hingoli, Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli and Amaravati.
