Maharashtra results 2019: NCP's Ajit Pawar wins in family bastion Baramati

Mumbai, Oct 24: With the counting in Maharashtra assembly elections underway, early trend shows Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)'s Ajit Pawar has won from Baramati constituency.

Baramati is best known to the outside world as the home turf of heavyweight Maharashtra politician and four-time chief minister Sharad Pawar, the NCP chief. His nephew Ajit Pawar is contesting from Baramati.

None except a Pawar has won the Baramati assembly seat in Maharashtra since 1967, that is, in 52 years.

Ajit Pawar has won this seat six times including the 1991-bypoll. Ajit Pawar is a high profile NCP leader and had resigned as MLA in 2019.

The ruling BJP fixated on denting Pawar's hold on the seat and has fielded Gopichand Padalkar, a Dhangar community leader. Gopichand left the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) ahead of the elections and joined the BJP.

The NCP strongman is fighting a battle for survival from his family bastion this time. He had resigned as MLA just ahead of the elections after being named by Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam. He had declared that he will 'fight fire with fire'.

In his rallies, Ajit Pawar raised the Enforcement Directorate action against him in the bank scam. He demanded to know when the ED will take action against other politicians on the board of banks where a scam of Rs 25,000 crore is alleged.

The two-time former deputy CM claimed that there was no corruption in and all outstanding loans have been recovered. He went on to point out in his rallies that the bank has also made a profit of Rs 285 crore.

In the 2014 elections, Ajit Pawar won from here by defeating the BJP candidate by a margin of 89,791 votes, pocketing a vote share of 65.92 per cent. Several opinion polls have predicted that Ajit Pawar is likely to win from the family stronghold.

In the 288-member Assembly, the Bharatiya Janata Party is contesting on 164 seats, which includes candidates of smaller allies. Shiv Sena has fielded 126 candidates. Congress, on the other hand, has candidates in 147 constituencies and NCP will contest 121 seats.