Setback for BJP in Maharashtra, Varanasi

Mumbai/Lucknow: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday suffered a major setback as the party managed to secure only one of the six seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Council elections, whereas the Maha Vikas Aghadi government won four seats, NDTV reported. The Opposition also won BJP's bastion in Nagpur and the crucial Pune seat. An independent candidate won the remaining seat.

BJP leader and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told ANI that the results of the polls were not what the party expected. "The results of Maharashtra Legislative Council polls are not as per our expectations. We were expecting more seats but won only one. We miscalculated the combined power of the three parties [Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena and Congress]."

The biggest setback to the BJP came from the Nagpur graduate constituency, which is the home turf of party's two senior leaders – Fadnavis and Union minister Nitin Gadkari. Both the political leaders as well as BJP's Maharashtra unit chief Chandrakant Patil had campaigned for the polls.

The Nagpur graduate seat was earlier represented by Gadkari and Devendra Fadnavis' father Gangadhar Rao Fadnavis. Gadkari had won five times from the constituency before contesting the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

BJP candidate Sandip Joshi lost to Congress' Abhijit Wanjari, The Indian Express reported. Joshi is a former Nagpur mayor and is known to be close to Devendra Fadnavis.

The NCP and the Congress had fielded its candidates in two seats each. The Shiv Sena contested in one seat. The BJP had put up candidates in four constituencies and an Independent supported by the party contested from another seat. "The picture has changed in the state," he added. Asked about state BJP chief Chandrakant Patil's statement that the outcome would have been different had the MVA constituents contested separately, Pawar said he was known for making comic statements.

Devendra Fadnavis said his party failed to gauge the combined strength of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies. He said the party will analyse the poll results and prepare for the next election in a better way. In a setback to the opposition party. "Now we know how big fight they can put up together. We will prepare better for the next polls." "We could only win one seat out of the six. We will analyse the results and plan for the next challenge.

We will also discuss the issue of selection of candidates, though prima facie I think they were suitable ones," he said.

The BJP has won three seats in the UP Legislative Council, of the six where results have been announced. All these six seats are in the teachers' constituency. The BJP has won seats in the teachers' constituencies in Lucknow, Meerut and Bareilly.

Meanwhile, a major setback for the BJP is that the party candidate has lost Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency, where the Samajwadi Party's Lal Bihari Yadav has won the election.