In a first, saffron party manages to wrest communally sensitive Sangli, Miraj and Ichalkaranji seats from the Congress

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won the communally sensitive Sangli, Miraj and Ichalkaranji Assembly seats from the Congress party.

This is the first time the saffron party has won in the constituencies that recently witnessed riots over a depiction of the slaying of Afzal Khan by Chhatrapati Shivaji on an arch erected at a Ganesh pandal.u00a0

While the administration managed to contain the violence in time, the incident polarised the local communities, according to experts, and helped the BJP win the three seats.

While the BJP candidate Suresh Halvankar won the Ichalkaranji assembly constituency defeating his nearest Congress rival Prakash Awade by a margin of 23,237 vote, while in the Sangli Assembly segment Sambhaji Pawar trounced former minister Madan Patil of the Congress by a margin of 11,164 votes and Suresh Khade defeated Congress candidate Balasaheb Honmore with a margin of 54,456 votes in the Miraj Assembly segment.