Nanded: Ashok Chavan Now Backing Former Rival Pratap Chikhalikar in LS Polls

Ashok Chavan, who recently departed from the Congress and joined the BJP, will now throw his support behind his previous rival, Pratap Patil Chikhalikar, who defeated him in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

In the 2019 polls, Chikhalikar, running on a BJP ticket, secured 486,806 votes, while the Congress candidate Ashok Chavan garnered 446,658 votes. Chavan lost to Chikhalikar by a margin of 40,148 votes.

Now, after five years, Chavan is making concerted efforts to ensure the victory of his former rival, Chikhalikar, in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in the Nanded LS constituency, scheduled for April 26.

During the 2019 elections, the total number of voters in the constituency was 17,19,322. Chikhalikar received 43.1% of the total votes polled, while Chavan secured 39.55%.

In 2014, the constituency had 16,87,057 voters. Ashok Chavan, the Congress candidate, won the elections by securing 493,075 votes, constituting 48.63% of the votes. He defeated BJP candidate D. B. Patil, who secured 411,620 votes, with a margin of 81,455 votes.