Mumbai: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Dhananjay Munde registered a sweeping victory as he defeated his estranged cousin, state rural development minister Pankaja Munde, by over 30,768 votes.
As per the Election Co-mmission’s official co-unt, Dhananjay secured 1,21,186 votes while Pankaja secured 90,418 votes.
Reacting to his surprise victory over his cousin, Dhananjay said he was both “joyous and pained”.
“The people of Parli have given me an unp-recedented victory. I tha-nk them. Heavenly Anna (his father) wanted to see me winning. How do I tell him that his son has won and that too in Parli,” Dhananjay remarked.
Charging the ruling party of engaging in dirty politics, the Leader of Opposition in the Legis-lative Council pointed out that the people of Parli voted for him despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and Chhatrapati Shivaji’s descendant Udayanraje Bhosale campaigning against him.
“This is an inscrutable result. I did not expect the result, given the developmental work carried out in the past five years and the response I received from people,” Pankaja said while accepting the unprecedented result.
The BJP leader added that she would analyse the reasons behind her defeat. “I worked for the constituency. Though I was in the government, my struggle for my constituency and people continued,” she said.
The campaigning in Parli Assembly constit-uency situated in Beed district had turned mu-rky as both leaders were seen levelling charges against each other.
The tussle between the cousins took a particularly nasty turn when Pankaja alleged that Dhananjay had made an obscene remark against her. He alleged that an emotional twist was being given to the election in the constituency as he has been receiving huge response from the people, causing fear of defeat in the minds of his rivals. The NCP leader, however, said he did not use bad words about any of his rivals, despite him being labelled a “monster”. “I did principle-based politics yesterday and doing it today. I have done kanyadaan of my 1,500 sisters (girls). I will never use wrong words about any woman. Hence, workers and citizens should not believe in rumours,” Mr Munde had said.
