Nagpur: The legislative council bypoll results in Nagpur and Bhandara on Monday delivered emphatic victories to BJP-led Mahayuti, but beneath the celebrations and victory margins, the elections revealed a deeper political malaise — large-scale cross-voting — that exposed unease within both ruling and opposition camps.In Nagpur, BJP’s Dr Rajiv Potdar crushed Congress chief spokesperson Atul Londhe by a record 552 votes, polling 682 votes against Londhe’s 130. While BJP celebrated the victory as proof of its political dominance in Vidarbha, the result also exposed cracks within Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which claimed support of more than 200 electors before polling.The final tally suggested nearly 99 votes from the opposition camp crossed over to BJP. Political observers described the scale of crossvoting as unprecedented in recent local authority elections. BJP’s ability to attract votes from Opposition-backed local representatives highlighted not only its organisational strength but also the opposition’s weakening grip over its local network.“This is the defeat of Congress leadership,” Dr Potdar said after the victory. “Congress had more than 200 votes, but could secure only 130,” he pointed out. However, the political undercurrent was not one-sided.In Bhandara-Gondia, BJP-backed Mahayuti candidate Avinash Brahmankar won comfortably with 302 votes, yet the spotlight shifted to 154 votes secured by Congress-backed Independent Naresh Ishwarkar. MVA did not officially possess numerical strength to reach that figure, triggering intense speculation that around 35 Mahayuti members may have defied BJP’s whip.The result exposed simmering dissatisfaction within sections of the ruling alliance, particularly among local representatives who quietly registered dissent through EVMs. Congress immediately seized on the numbers to project the outcome as a “moral victory”. Bhandara MP Prashant Padole told the media the result reflected “growing unrest in BJP despite its access to power, resources and administrative machinery.”Political analysts said the twin results reflected two parallel realities in Vidarbha. While BJP continues to dominate electorally and organisationally, voting patterns indicated internal tensions at the grassroots. Also, Congress’ inability to retain committed votes in Nagpur pointed towards organisational erosion.Congress already suffered a major setback in Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli constituency after its candidate withdrew from the contest, allowing BJP candidate Arun Lakhani to win uncontested. In Yavatmal too, Sena candidate Dushyant Chaturvedi was elected unopposed after Opposition parties failed to maintain a united front.Still, taken together, the results underlined Vidarbha’s continued emergence as the BJP’s strongest political bastion in Maharashtra. The region, which played a decisive role in BJP’s return to power in 2024 assembly polls, once again delivered a commanding mandate to the ruling coalition in indirect elections dominated by municipal councillors, zilla parishad members and other elected local representatives.
