AIMIM beats Shiv Sena in Aurangabad

After nearly 18 hours of nail-biting suspense, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) finally wrested the Aurangabad seat from the Shiv Sena, while the Congress managed to bag Chandrapur defeating Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir, an official said here on Friday.

AIMIM candidate, journalist-turned-politician Imtiyaz Jaleel Syed trounced the sitting four-time Sena senior leader Chandrakant Khaire in a see-saw drama that ended at around 4 a.m. on Friday.

Syed and Khaire kept leading-trailing each other in several rounds and counts since Thursday evening. 

Until then, Jaleel was in a comfortable position, but the tables apparently reversed when the rural areas votes were taken up for counting.

Finally, he was declared elected with a margin of 4,492 votes over Khaire - giving the AIMIM its first MP from Maharashtra.

In an encore of the 41-seat 2014 performance in the 2019 polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena alliance on Thursday swept the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra, winning 23 (of 25 it contested) and 18 (of 23 it contested) seats respectively, of the state's total 48 seats.

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) bagged four, one went to AIMIM, and one to Independent-backed by Opposition, South Indian film actress Navnit Kaur R. Rana, who captured Amravati.

The lone Congress warrior, Suresh Dhanorkar trounced BJP's Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir by a margin of around 44,000 votes to capture the Chandrapur seat.

Even the ally Sena lost its Cabinet Minister Anant Geete to NCP strongman Sunil Tatkare in Raigad.

From the Congress, two former Chief Ministers Ashok Chavan and Sushilkumar Shinde were trounced in Nanded and Solapur respectively, by the BJP.

Nilesh Rane -- the son of former Chief Minister Narayan Rane and President of Maharashtra Swabhiman Party -- was defeated by Shiv Sena in Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, while Parth, the son of former NCP Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar lost in Maval. IANS