Maharashtra: Devendra Fadnavis blames sympathy factor for BJP's defeat in Kolhapur North bypoll

BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis. File Photo

Senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday said the sympathy factor apparently went in favour of MVA candidate Jayashri Jadhav who won the bypoll to the Kolhapur North Assembly constituency in Maharashtra by defeating her BJP rival Satyajit Kadam.

Jadhav, the wife of late Congress MLA Chandrakant Jadhav, won by a margin of 19,307 votes by bagging 97,332 votes.

Fadnavis said he was satisfied with the bypoll outcome which shows that a space has been created for BJP in the region even as three parties- Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress- contested together.

"I am confident that BJP will win this seat in 2024 elections," Fadnavis told media persons after a function where a book 'A Nation to Protect-leading India through the Covid crisis', authored by Priyam Gandhi-Mody, was launched by Union minister Piyush Goyal.

In a dig at former ally Shiv Sena, Fadnavis said that political compulsions seem to be stopping them from reciting Hanuman Chalisa.

Earlier, independent MLA Ravi Rana and his wife and Lok Sabha member Navneet Rana had demanded that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who heads Shiv Sena, recite Hanuman Chalisa at his residence.

Fadnavis said the BJP won more votes in Kolhapur North than the total votes polled by Sena and BJP when they had contested together in the 2019 polls.

"Three parties together secured the same number of votes (in Kolhapur North) that one party had won in the last elections. I feel that BJP is occupying that space," he said.

The former chief minister said that the sympathy factor went in favour of the MVA candidate and the bypoll result was more or less expected.

"In India, specifically in Maharashtra, in 19 out of 20 such elections, family members, especially wives of the deceased legislators have won," the opposition leader said.

Speaking on the Hanuman Chalisa issue, Fadnavis said, "We have been reciting Hanuman Chalisa for centuries. I feel the reason for their unhappiness is something different. There is some political reason which we need to find out," Fadnavis said without taking names.

Hanuman Chalisa has become the hot topic in Maharashtra politics after MNS chief Raj Thackeray's ultimatum that MNS will play the hymn in the praise of Lord Hanuman in a higher volume outside mosques after May 3 if loudspeakers atop them are not shut down.

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