Drenched in rain, 79-year-old NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar addressed a rally in Maharashtra’s Satara district, his speech a prophesy about how events would transpire, six days before the results were to be announced.
“NCP will do a miracle,” Pawar had stated and the miracle indeed, as witnessed in Satara bypolls, has left everyone stunned.
Although the results of the Satara bypolls are yet to be declared, NCP candidate Shriniwas Patil is leading with a margin of more than 80,000 votes.
His rival Udayanraje Bhosale, who is the former Sikkim governor and happens to be a descendant of Shivaji, had joined the BJP in September 2019.
Commenting on the electoral fate of those who chose to jump the ship, Pawar was quoted as saying,
“People who left us have not been accepted. Defections have not worked in favour of those who left.”
‘Aayaram-Gayaram’ Disappoint in Haryana
With 11 turncoats making it to BJP’s first list of candidates in Haryana, it was expected that the defecting leaders will give an electoral advantage to the saffron party.
The Haryana Assembly elections have, however, proved that the politics of ‘aayaram-gayaram’ is not going to work any longer.
As many as six MLAs from the INLD (Indian National Lok Dal) and five others from the JJP and Congress had defected to the BJP between August and October 2019.
But their move of switching parties in the hope of making the most of BJP’s popularity wave across India hasn’t worked at the constituency level.
Fate of INLD Leaders Who Joined BJP
Parminder Singh Dhull, former INLD MLA who had joined BJP recently, was trailing behind Amarjeet Dhanda (JJP candidate) in Julana constituency as per estimates of the Election Commission at the time this article was written.
While Parminder Singh Dhull could secure 37,749 votes in total, his rival Dhanda was ahead with 61,942 votes. Julana falls in Jind district and is dominated by the Jats.
According to a report by The Tribune, Julana is among 35 seats where Jat voters were expected to play a significant role, and, it was with the intention of wooing the Jat community that BJP had fielded Parminder Singh Dhull. Dhull’s father had been an MLA seven times and was Haryana’s first irrigation and power minister after it became a separate state in 1966.
In July 2019, former INLD MLA Ram Chander Kamboj resigned from the party as he was ‘deeply distressed and pained at the internal feud of the (Chautala) family’. Kamboj was the first leader from the parliamentary constituency of Sirsa who had bid farewell to the INLD.
Contesting from Rania constituency in Sirsa district on a BJP ticket, Kamboj got a total of 20,709 votes at the time of writing this article. Ranjeet Singh, member of the Chautala clan and Devi Lal’s son, contested as an Independent and was leading with a total of 53,825 votes.
73% Former INLD Leaders Trailing
Ranvir Gangwa from Nalwa, Ram Kumar Kashyap from Indri constituency and Jagdish Nayyar from Hodal were the only former INLD leaders who were not trailing behind their counterparts.
Two out of three former Congress leaders were leading in their respective constituencies which included Vinod Bhayana from Hansi and Dura Ram from Fatehabad constituency.
Among two former INLD leaders, Ashok Arora and Pradeep Choudhary who fought on Congress tickets this time, Arora was trailing behind BJP’s Subhash Sudha in Thanesar by 842 votes. While Pradeep Choudhary was leading with 57,948 votes in Kalka.
Fate of Turncoats in Maharashtra
Out of 14 turncoat leaders, who were either with Congress or NCP and had switched their loyalty to BJP and its ally Shiv Sena, only 4 candidates were trailing according to the total tally of votes counted till 6 pm.
In the Indapur constituency, former Congress leader and Maharashtra minister Harshawardhan Patil, who had joined the BJP in September 2019, was trailing at 1,11,850 votes. His rival from the NCP Dattatray Bharane was slightly ahead of him at 1,14, 128 votes.
Similarly, in Akole constituency which comes under the Ahmednagar district, former NCP leader Vaibhav Pichad, who had joined the BJP in July 2019, was trailing at 55,725 votes. Vaibhav Pichad’s father, Madhukar Pichad, happens to be a senior NCP leader and former state minister.
Alpesh Thakor Faces Defeat Too
Another shocking defeat was of a politician who had recently changed sides: former Congress MLA Alpesh Thakor, in Gujarat’s Radhanpur Assembly seat.
Thakor had won from a Congress ticket in the 2017 Gujarat Assembly elections but joined the BJP in July 2019 alleging “injustice and ill-treatment by the party” which had given him his break on the political stage.
Alpesh had emerged as a prominent OBC leader, who had countered the 2015 Patidar agitation, with the suggestion that “every community should get reservation in accordance with its population.”
Following his popularity in the days which saw the rise of patidar leader Hardik Patel, Thakor soon floated his own outfit called the ‘Thakor Sena’.
According to a recent news report, with Chief Minister Vijay Rupani likely to reshuffle the cabinet around Diwali, it was expected that Thakor would be asked to join the government in case he won from the Radhanpur Assembly seat.
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