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The curious case of Nanded voting: Same voter, same day goes with Mahayuti for Assembly and Congress for Lok Sabha

All six Assembly seats within the Nanded Lok Sabha constituency elected Mahayuti candidates while the Lok Sabha bypoll saw a Congerss candidate's win.

Ravindra Vasantrao Chavan in the Nanded bypolls got 5,86,788 votes as against 5,85,331 votes polled by Santukrao Hambarde of the BJP. (Facebook/Ravindra Vasantrao Chavan)

Despite Congress candidate Ravindra Chavan winning the Lok Sabha bypoll for the Nanded constituency, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) failed to secure any of the Assembly segments in Nanded. A closer analysis of the results reveal interesting trends in Maharashtra Assembly elections.

Chavan in the Nanded bypolls got 5,86,788 votes as against 5,85,331 votes polled by Santukrao Hambarde of the BJP. Chavan’s slender winning margin of 1,457 came mainly from the postal ballots where he had got a good lead. Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) candidate Avinash Bhosikar got 80,176 votes and ate into both the candidates’ votes.

The bypoll for the Nanded Lok Sabha seat was necessitated due to the sudden death of Vasantrao Balwantrao Chavan, who had defeated sitting BJP MP Pratap Patil Chikhalikar by a handsome margin of over 59,000 votes in Lok Sabha elections 2024.

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The Lok Sabha bypoll was held simultaneously with the Maharashtra Assembly elections, in which the MVA faced a complete rout. All the six Assembly segments in Nanded – Nanded North, Nanded South, Deglur, Bhokar, Mukhed and Naigaon – elected Mahayuti candidates. Congress candidates came second in these six Assembly seats. The votes polled by Mahayuti candidates in the six Assembly seats were 6,12,062 while Congress candidates polled 4,27,465 votes.

The Congress candidate in the Lok Sabha bypoll received 1,59,301 votes more than the total number of votes garnered by all the MVA candidates in the same Assembly constituencies. Since both elections took place simultaneously at the same polling stations, this indicated significant cross-voting. In other words, some voters who cast their ballots for the Congress in the Lok Sabha bypoll voted for the Mahayuti in the Assembly elections.

Chavan stated that cross-voting is not uncommon in local elections, such as those for Zalmi parishads and panchayat committees, where voters often choose different candidates.

Nanded Lok Sabha by polls:

Congress	BJP	VBA	4th
586788	585331	80176	19900

Maharashtra Assembly elections 2024:

	BJP	Congress	VBA
Nanded North	83184	79682	24266
Nanded South	60445	58313	33841
Naigaon	129192	81563	16043
Deglur	107841	64842	15919
Bhokar	133187	82636	8872
Mukhed	98213	60429	48235
Total	612062	427465	147176

Parthasarathi Biswas

Partha Sarathi Biwas is an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express with 10+ years of experience in reporting on Agriculture, Commodities and Developmental issues. He has been with The Indian Express since 2011 and earlier worked with DNA. Partha's report about Farmers Producer Companies (FPC) as well long pieces on various agricultural issues have been cited by various academic publications including those published by the Government of India. He is often invited as a visiting faculty to various schools of journalism to talk about development journalism and rural reporting. In his spare time Partha trains for marathons and has participated in multiple marathons and half marathons. ... Read More

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