Karnataka - Bidar   

Suryawanshi’s Assembly seat dreams fall flat

BIDAR: Narsinghrao Suryawanshi, Bidar MP and Congress candidate in the Aurad (reserve) constituency, has failed in its first attempt to make it to the Assembly. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Prabhu Chavan won the seat by a huge margin of votes.

The Aurad seat was reserved for the Scheduled Castes and the Bidar parliamentary seat was made a general category seat after the delimitation exercise.

Mr. Suryawanshi, a native of Aurad taluk, polled 29,186 votes and Mr. Chavan 56,964.

Having won the parliamentary elections in 1980, 1984 and 1989 and the byelections in 2004, Mr. Suryawanshi was considered to be a strong candidate. He had the backing of the former Minister Gurupadappa Nagamarapalli. Mr. Nagamarapalli is a four-time MLA from Aurad.

It is said that Mr. Nagamarapalli had considerable clout among the voters but did not work in favour of ensuring Mr. Suryawanshi’s success.

Another former MLA Gundappa Vakil had represented Aurad in 1999 as a Bharatiya Janata Party nominee.

But he quit the BJP and joined the Congress just before the elections.

Mr. Vakil had also promised to work for the success of Mr. Suryawanshi in Aurad.

The Marathas hold the key in the constituency and both Mr. Suryawanshi and Mr. Chavan were involved in pulling Maratha voters to their side.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh campaigned to secure Maratha votes for Mr. Suryawanshi. The former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde also toured the constituency to woo voters.

Arunrao Patil, son of a former Maharashtra Ekikarana Samiti MLA from Aurad Bapurao Patil, also campaigned for Mr. Suryawanshi in the constituency this time around.

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