Shiv Sena's Trupti Sawant beats Narayan Rane in Bandra ; setback for congress' state leadership

MUMBAI: Senior Congress leader and Former Chief Minister Narayan Rane lost the assembly bypoll in Bandra East constituency of Mumbai with a large margin. Shiv Sena's Trupti Sawant won the seat by 19,008 votes. This is seen as a major setback for Rane. In western Maharashtra's Tasgaon constituency, former state minister's R.R.Patil's widow Suman Patil won the polls with a margin of over one lakh votes.

The Bandra byelection in Mumbai gained importance and became a prestigious fight between the Congress and Shiv Sena because Sena president Uddhav Thackeray's residence Matoshree happens to be in this constituency. In a sense, this was seen as Thackeray's home turf. Assaduddin Owaissi's Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MIM) fielded Rahbar Khan for the bypolls.

This result is also seen as a setback for the leadership of Maharashtra Congress as this was the first election happening in the state after Ashok Chavan and Sanjay Nirupam took over as state Congress president and city Congress chief respectively. Sena's Trupti Sawant, the widow of former Bandra east MLA Prakash Sawant got 52,711 votes while Rane managed to get 33,703 votes and MIM's Rahbar Khan got 15050 votes.

Speaking after the announcement of the bypoll results, Uddhav Thackeray said “This is the victory of the voters. We will fulfil the promises we made to the voters of Bandra. People have also shown the MIM their place”.

Narayan Rane said "Victory and defeat is part of life and I accept the verdict given by the people. I will continue to work for the people. This is not the first time or last time I have fought elections. I thank all Congressmen who worked during this campaign. What I want to do next is something I will think about". MPCC President Ashok Chavan said "Rane remains one of the top leaders of the state Congress and one win or loss will not affect our moral. We will continue to fight for people's issues in the state against the Sena-BJP government".

In Tasgaon constituency of Sangli district in Western Maharashtra, Suman Patil contested on Nationalist Congress Party ticket and won by a margin of 1,12,953 votes. No party fielded a candidate against Suman Patil. Her rival, independent candidate Swapnil Patil contested as a BJP rebel.