BJP, SS, BRP-BMS taste victory

AKOLA: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena and BRP-BMS tasted victory from Murtizapur, Akot and
Balapur respectively on Thursday. While Harish Pimple won from Murtizapur, Sanjay Gawande of Shiv Sena emerged victorious from Akot and Baliram Siraskar of BRP-BMS bagged the Balapur.
In Akot, while Senaman Gawande garnered 37,834 votes, his nearest rival Sudhakar Gangane of Congress tallied 36,869.Independent Prakash Bharsakle with 32,415 votes finished third, pushing Prabhakar Mankar of BRP-BMS to fourth spot with 32,729 votes. Gawande found luck for the first time when he won by the slender margin of 965 votes.
Bharsakle shifted from Daryapur to Akot because Daryapur became a reserved constituency and posed a challenge as independent to Congress nominee Gangane, a strongman of Vilasrao Deshmukh. Bharsakle fought for the fifth time in a row. In short Congress failed to pacify the established powerful leaders who were denied party tickets.
In Murtizapur, the voters liked Harish Pimple of BJP who nurtured his constituency well in advance as compared to NCP's Pratibha Avchar.
In Balapur the BRP-BMS votes remained intact and Baliram Siraskar got the benefit of party's committed votes. Siraskar tallied highest 39,581. In the Muslim-dominated constituency, Congress fielded Razia Begum Natikoddin Khatif who though was defeated by a narrow margin of 1,590 votes as she got 37,991. An independent candidate Nitin Deshmukh who secured sizable votes 25,022 all presumably belonging to Congress, dented the Congress votebank.
In Akola district, while Shiv Sena and BJP alliance won one and two seats, BRP-BMS was able to open its account by bagging two seats.