Maharashtra: 'Unprecedented' voter split in Nanded raises eyebrows

In a strange turn of events, the Congress party clinched victory in the Nanded Lok Sabha by-poll but suffered a complete rout in all six assembly segments within the constituency.

This outcome has sparked questions and suspicions among both experts and the party itself, with Congress leader Gurdeep Sappal terming it “unprecedented voter behaviour and a strange coincidence”.

While the Congress’ Ravindra Chavan narrowly edged out the BJP's Santukrao Hambarde by 1,457 votes in the Lok Sabha by-poll, the assembly elections told a drastically different story.

All six legislative segments of Nanded Lok Sabha — Bhokar, Nanded North, Nanded South, Naigaon, Deglur (SC), and Mukhed — fell into the hands of the BJP and the Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti alliance.

Sappal questioned the credibility of such a strange voter choice, noting that the same electorate, voting at the same time, behaved starkly differently in the two contests.

“The Congress got 4.27 lakh votes in six assembly seats put together, but got 5.87 lakh in Lok Sabha, even though the voters were the same, number of voters was also same, and both polls were held at the same time,” Sappal said in a post on X.

The analysis further reveals that the Congress suffered a cumulative losing margin of a little over 1.84 lakh votes across the six assembly seats. Sappal argued that the shift of roughly one-fourth of Congress voters to the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance cannot be explained using conventional political logic alone.

"Even diehard BJP supporters wouldn’t believe that Congress voters suddenly preferred the Shinde-Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar trio over Modi," he remarked. "The question remains, why did one-fourth of Congress voters go with Mahayuti while voting for the party for the Lok Sabha seat?"

A closer look at the assembly poll results

• Bhokar: BJP's Chavan Sreeraya Ashokrai defeated Congress' Kadam Kondhekar Tirupati

• Nanded North: Shiv Sena's Balaji Devidasrao Kalyankar overcame Congress’ Abdul Sattar Gaffoor

• Nanded South: Shiv Sena’s Anand Shankar Tidke defeated Mohanrao Marotrao Hambarde

• Naigaon: BJP's Rajesh Sambhajirao Pawar bested Meenal Patil Khatgaonkar

• Deglur (SC): BJP's Antapurkar Jitesh Raosaheb outpaced Nivrutti Kondiba Kamble Sangvikar

• Mukhed: BJP's Tushar Govindrao Rathod defeated Patil Hanmantrao Venkatrao

The Lok Sabha win, albeit by a razor-thin margin, offers little solace for Congress in the face of a resounding assembly defeat. The results, instead, underscore a troubling pattern for the party.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) — the Congress' alliance with Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena — also faced a crushing defeat in Maharashtra. The Mahayuti alliance of the BJP, Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, and Ajit Pawar’s NCP won 233 of the 288 assembly seats, leaving the MVA with a tally of just 49.

These results not only highlight the Congress’ struggles in state elections but also raise questions about voter behaviour and electoral patterns. As Sappal put it, “We are probing this unprecedented voter behaviour and strange coincidence.”

While Congress celebrates its Lok Sabha victory, the setbacks in Assembly elections serve as a reminder of the challenges the grand old party faces in countering the BJP-led alliance’s dominance in Maharashtra.