With the registration of more than one lakh graduate voters in the district, there is hope that a contestant from Pune will be elected to contest the elections
With the registration of more than one lakh graduate voters in the district, speculation is rife that the candidate elected to contest the upcoming graduate constituency elections would be from Pune district.
Sharad Butte Patil, who is NCP’s aspiring candidate from Pune district for the graduate constituency election
The elections for the graduate and teacher constituency elections would be held in July. In the past two elections, no candidate from the Pune district contested the graduate constituency election in Pune division. There is hope that this trend will change this time round, with huge numbers of graduates having registered in the district.
The larger number of registered graduates in Pune raises the possibility that a Pune-based candidate will get a ticket to contest the election. The last candidate who contested the election from Pune constituency was BJP’s Prakash Javadekar, who did so 12 years ago.
Pune division is one of the seven graduate constituencies in the state where the elections are held. It comprises the five districts of Pune, Sangli, Satara, Kolhapur, and Solapur. The candidates are residents of different divisions, who are graduates.
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Sharad Butte Patil, an aspiring candidate from the Pune district, said that so far he had been successful in registering the names of 1.68 lakh graduates, who could vote in the upcoming graduate constituency election.
“In the coming days, we will try and raise this figure to more than two lakh. Thus, my chances of getting the ticket would also be high,” said Butte Patil, an NCP member who has worked as a speaker of Pune Zilla Parishad for 10 years.
While western Maharashtra, and especially Pune division, has always been an NCP bastion, BJP’s candidates always have enjoyed a stronghold in graduate constituency elections in Pune division. Barring the stretch between 2002 and 2008, BJP candidates have been winning the Pune division seat in the graduate constituency, in 1990-2002 and 2008-2014.
“NCP is now also trying hard to snatch the seat from BJP, by registering huge numbers of voters. Whether the party would contest the election with Congress would be decided only after the announcement of Lok Sabha results on May 16,” Butte Patil said. The other aspiring candidate to contest the election from Pune division is Sarang Patil from Karad.
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