Nitin Gadkari Secures 3rd Consecutive Victory in Nagpur Lok Sabha 2024
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Nitin Gadkari of the Bharatiya Janata Party (Mahayuti) stood out in the Nagpur Lok Sabha constituency by defeating Vikas Thakre from the Congress (Maha Vikas Aaghadi) and securing his third consecutive victory. Although BJP’s claims about Gadkari’s victory were high, the fact that he has won three times in a row from the same constituency is quite significant. In this election, Gadkari emerged victorious by a margin of 1,37,603 votes after 20 rounds of counting— he received 6,55,027 votes while Thakre got 5,17,424 votes. It was a direct face-off between Gadkari and Thakre; one positive aspect for Congress was that Thakre managed to bridge the gap significantly compared to previous elections even though Gadkari has been winning since 2014 but with decreasing leads. It was in 2014 that he unexpectedly defeated Vilas Muttemwar, who had been a Member of Parliament seven times over, by a staggering 2,84,828 votes. The margin of victory decreased in the 2019 election when he won against Nana Patole by more than 2.16 lakh votes— and Thakre has only managed to make it even smaller this time around
For many years, Nagpur has been under the control of the Congress. Banwarilal Purohit managed to break this pattern in 1996 when he won the seat on a BJP ticket. However, in both 2004 and 2009, Vilas Muttemwar was able to take back the position for Congress. In recent times, over the past decade, Gadkari has managed to secure a powerful standing in Nagpur. This year when the election was declared and Gadkari emerged as the BJP candidate, there was initially no taker from Congress. It wasn't until later that local Congress leaders decided on Vikas Thakre— who is currently serving as the West Nagpur MLA and City Congress President. Interestingly enough, this marked the first instance where all Congress leaders in Nagpur came together in support of Thakre; this unity could be seen as a positive point for the party.
Gadkari sustained his lead consistently throughout the election process starting from a significant 11,675 vote advantage in the initial round. The lead kept increasing steadily except for a minor dip in the seventh round; by the end of the sixth round he was leading by 43,958 votes but dropped to 40,924 in the seventh only to rise again. Much like the previous elections, Congress Party showcased its strength in Nagpur North Assembly constituency with Thakre outshining Gadkari. They also made progress in Central Nagpur— which interestingly had the lowest voter turnout among all six constituencies. There were expectations that Congress would gain considerable support from the Halba community but those speculations did not come into fruition— much like many other political promises made during election season.
