NCP’s Vasant Davkhare suffers shock defeat

Nationalist Congress Party received a jolt on Monday as its strongman and deputy chairman of Legislative Council Vasant Davkhare was defeated in the Thane Local Body constituency polls. Shiv Sena’s Ravindra Phatak defeated Mr Davkhare by a margin of 151 votes.

The result of Thane Local Authority constituency was announced on Monday morning, in which Mr Phatak, the Sena-BJP alliance candidate, bagged 601 votes. Mr Davkhare polled 450 votes. Out of the total 1,060 electors, 1,057 cast their votes while six votes were invalid.

Mr Davkhare has been a member of the Legislative Council for 24 years, since 1992. He had represented the same constituency for four consecutive terms.

Mr Phatak was once the close confidante of senior Congress leader Narayan Rane, who was recentlyelected as an MLC from Legislative Assembly quota. When Mr Rane had decided to quit Shiv Sena and join Congress, Mr Phatak had supported him. But after Mr Rane lost in the 2014 assembly poll from Kankavli and Mr Phatak also failed to win his seat as a Congress candidate, Mr Phatak joined Shiv Sena last year.

According to a Shiv Sena insider, the party leadership had assured Mr Phatak that he would be given an MLC seat if he left Mr Rane. “Eknath Shinde, guardian minister of Thane played an important role in bringing Mr Phatak to Shiv Sena and also had the responsibility to (help him) win the MLC election to fulfil the assurance given to Mr Phatak,” said the source.

Though Mr Davkhare has accepted his defeat, his team is worried about cross-voting.

It is believed that Mr Davkhare had approached Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray and was under the impression MNS would vote for him. However, MNS’ 20 votes were cast for Mr Phatak. Around 90 votes from small parties, including 48 independents, played an important role in Mr Phatak’s victory.

The voters for this election included 311 from Shiv Sena, 180 from BJP, 199 from NCP, 103 from Congress, 119 from Bahujan Vikas Aghadi, 20 from MNS, 17 from Samajwadi Party, 63 from small parties and 48 independents.