The BJP on Wednesday, 8 January, lost the Zilla Parishad (ZP) seat in party leader and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari’s native village Dhapewada in Nagpur district in Maharashtra, an election official said.
Congress candidate Mahendra Dongre won the Dhapewada seat in election held on Tuesday defeating BJP nominee Maruti Somkuvar.
Dongre secured 9,444 votes, while Somkuvar received 5,501 votes, the official said.
The ZP's Dhapewada circle (seat) was with the BJP for the last three terms. This time the seat in Kalmeshwar taluka of the district was reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates.
The BJP's Rahul Kendre and Bharatbai Dagadu Solunkhe were elected unopposed as president and vice-president respectively of Latur Zilla Parishad on Monday, 6 January.
The BJP has a strength of 35 in the 58-member Latur ZP, while the Congress, NCP, and Shiv Sena, which have now formed the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi, have 14, five and two members respectively.
The Congress' nominee for the post of president, Sonali Thormothe, and for vice president, Dhananjay Deshmukh, withdrew their nominations in the morning, after which Returning Officer Avinash Pathak declared Kendre and Solunkhe as winners.
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