01 July,2014 08:06 AM IST | | Priyankka Deshpande
Priya Gadade-Patil emerged victorious by securing 10,797 votes in the Pune Municipal Corporation polls held yesterday, in spite of getting disqualified for submitting a fake birth certificate with her nomination papers in the last civic election
Priya Gadade-Patil
After a local court disqualified MNS corporator Priya Gadade-Patil for forging her birth certificate at the time of submitting her nomination papers for the last Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) polls, she has made a victorious comeback by winning the re-elections with 10,797 votes.
Priya Gadade-Patil
She won the re-election conducted yesterday by a difference of nearly 8,000 votes. After the certificate scam came to light in March last year, the court had prohibited Patil from contesting the election for seven years.
She, however, appealed in the High Court, which lifted the ban, and ordered re-elections around two months ago. Patil was elected as Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) candidate from the Janata Vasahat Ward (number 56). The party gave her a second chance to contest the elections, which she won, although, with lower margin when compared with her
2012 win.
Party support
"She is sincere in her work and is dedicated to her voters. That is why we fielded her again to contest the election. She has proved that the party made the right decision in giving her a ticket," said MNS city chief Bala Shedage. Born in September 5, 1991, Patil had submitted a fake birth certificate showing September 5, 1990, as her birth date. This meant that she was below 21 years and thus not eligible to contest the election in 2012. "It was nothing but a conspiracy made by the opposition parties," added Shedage.
However, Shiv Sena city chief Sham Deshpande said that the allegation made by MNS is baseless. "We thought the voters would teach her a lesson for cheating and submitting fake documents. However, we are surprised that she won again," added Deshpande.
Gadade Patil received 10,797 while her opponent from Shiv Sena Vaishali Darvatkar and Congress party's Anita Walunjkar received 2,744 and 1,227 votes respectively.
