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NCP's Rohit Pawar Wins By 43,347 Votes In Maharashtra's BJP Stronghold Karjat Jamkhed

Rohit Pawar was pitted against BJP's Ram Shinde.

NCP candidate Rohit Pawar, who was pitted against BJP’s sitting MLA and cabinet minister Ram Shinde, won by 43,347 votes in Karjat Jamkhed, located in the Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra.

Karjat Jamkhed has been a BJP stronghold and the party has won from here for the past 25 years.

Rohit is one of the star candidates of the NCP and the grandson of party chief Sharad Pawar’s late elder brother Appasaheb.

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Ahead of the Maharashtra elections, Rohit had told Huffpost India’s Pavan Dahat in an interview that he was in politics for that he was in politics for social work and he did not believe he was a dynast. He also addressed the issue of demoralised party cadre by saying, “It is just a perception promoted by BJP directly and indirectly. Our problem was that we did not counter it. It is the media’s right to say whatever they want to. There are a lot of people in our party who are from other communities. If the leader of our party is Maratha that doesn’t mean we believe in caste politics or favour only one caste. We are born in that community and we are proud of it but we never used it as a tool for politics.”

PTI had reported earlier this month that the BJP has built an outside versus local narrative in its campaign against Rohit who faces a tough fight. The Ahmednagar parliamentary seat had become a controversial place durinng the Lok Sabha elections between Sharad Pawar and politically powerful Vikhe-Patil family during the 2019 general elections. Ultimately, after Sharad Pawar refused to let Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil’s son Sujay Vikhe Patil contest from the seat, he joined the BJP and won from the seat.

Despite the tough competition, and the odds agianst him, Rohit’s hopes are high. He told PTI, “The fact that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis addressed two rallies in this constituency and BJP chief Amit Shah is going to hold a rally on October 19 indicates that the battle is tough for the BJP candidate.”

In 2014, the NCP candidate had been relegated to the third spot in this constituency.

(with PTI inputs)

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.