2024 Maharashtra Polls: Fifteen candidates from the ruling Mahayuti breached the 1-lakh victory margin threshold, including Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Ajit Pawar in their respective strongholds of Kopri-Pachpakhadi and Baramati.

The 15 comprise eight from the BJP, four from Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party and three from Shinde’s Shiv Sena. No candidate from the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi won this handsomely, though some managed to have victory margins of 90,000 votes.

The BJP’s Kashiram Vechan Pawara won from Shirpur by a margin of 145944 votes, while the party’s Shivendraraje Bhonsale defeated his nearest rival in Satara by 1.42 lakh votes.

Other BJP candidates who won with more than one lakh votes are Kewalram Kale (106,859 votes from Melghat), Dilip Borse (129,297 votes from Baglan), Sanjay Upadhyay (100,257 votes from Borivali), Shankar Jagtap (103,865 votes from Chinchwad), Chandrakant Patil (112,041 votes from Kothrud) and Krishan Khopde (115288 votes from Nagpur East).

Ajit Pawar defeated his nephew and NCP (SP) candidate Yugendra Pawar by 100,899 votes in Baramati, though this was less than the 1.65 lakh vote victory margin of the NCP leader in the 2019 polls.

Sunil Shelke (108,565 votes from Maval), Ashutosh Kale (124,624 votes from Kopargaon), and Maharashtra Minister Dhananjay Munde (140,224 votes from Parli) were others from Ajit Pawar’s party who managed to get into the 1-lakh victory margin club.

CM Shinde won from the Kopri-Pachpakhadi Assembly constituency with a margin of 159,060 votes, while his party’s candidate from Ovala-Majiwada constituency Pratap Sarnaik won by 108,158 votes. Shinde’s cabinet colleague Dada Bhuse won from Malegaon Outer constituency by 106,606 votes.

The highest number of votes polled in the November 20 assembly polls went to BJP candidate Shankar Jagtap (235323), followed by the party’s candidate from Bhosari assembly constituency Mahesh Landge (213624), and NCP candidate from Parli assembly constituency Dhananjay Munde (194889).