Shiv Sena rattled as rebel BJP candidate wins Nashik MLC poll

Mumbai: The Shiv Sena suffered a jolt on Monday when its candidate, Narendra Darade, lost the MLC polls from Nashik. He was defeated by independent candidate Gokul Gite. Darade’s loss left the Shiv Sena miffed with the BJP, as Gite was a rebel BJP candidate. Senior Shiv Sena ministers said they would raise the issue of Darade’s defeat with the BJP during the coordination committee meeting of the three Mahayuti allies.

Gite won by 109 votes, securing 357 votes against Darade’s 248. The result came as a surprise and is likely to further strain relations between the Shiv Sena and BJP, with the former already unhappy over being allotted only four seats in MLC elections. “We are trying to find out who is responsible. We will submit a report to our party leader (Eknath Shinde), and I will raise this issue in the coordination meeting as to how our candidate got defeated when we had the numbers. We need to fix responsibility for this,” said Shiv Sena minister Shambhuraj Desai.

The spotlight is now on BJP minister Girish Mahajan, who is said to be close to Gite. Mahajan said, “This was a shocking result. We had more than 500 votes. We need to find out what happened and who did not vote for us. This is a very unfortunate result.”
Gite’s victory was even more startling because he had been forced to halt his campaign and “withdraw” from the contest after top BJP and Shiv Sena leaders intervened.