Mumbai: The Sangli police has registered a first information report (FIR) against two political party workers for betting on the likely winner from the Sangli Lok Sabha constituency.
The seat in question is witnessing a tough fight between Sanjay Patil, Vishal Patil and Gopichand Padalkar, the respective candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatna (SSS) and Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA).
The accused, Rajkumar Lahu-Kore and Ranjit Desai, party workers of the BJP and SSS respectively, had placed a bet of '1 lakh on the results of election and notarised the document so no one could change his stand after the results were announced. .
On May 23, Sangli Lok Sabha constituency went to the polls. Debates have been going on at tea stalls, bus and auto stands as to which candidate would win the seat.
Kore and Desai, like the others, were also discussing the poll results. They, however, decided to place bets and promised each other to pay Rs 1 lakh if their leader lost the election. Going a step further, they made note of their betting conditions on stamp paper and had it notarised. Both of them then wrote a post-dated cheque of Rs 1 lakh.
The Miraj gramin police later booked the duo under sections related to gambling and police constable Chandrakant Wagh is the complainant in the FIR.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Sanjay Patil wrested the seat from Congress’ Pratik Patil after bagging 611,563 votes. Pratik Patil came second, with 372,271 votes while the Bahujan Samaj Party and Aam Aadmi Party candidates — Bandgar Nanaso Balaso and Sameena Abdulmajid Khan — came third and fourth respectively.
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