Union Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) candidate from Maharashtra's Jalna Lok Sabha seat Raosaheb Patil Danve cast his vote at the polling booth in Jalna.
Exuding confidence, Raosaheb Patil Danve said, "I am 100 per cent confident about winning. This is not my first election. I have contested 8 elections and won them." Elaborating further, he said, "This time I will win with 4 lakh votes and we will get 45 seats in Maharashtra and in the country, we will cross 400 seats..."
Voting for the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections in 96 Parliamentary Constituencies across nine states and one Union Territory was held on Monday.
Danve vs Kalyan Kale
Danve, the Union Minister of State, was facing Kalyan Kale of Congress. Ranked among the BJP’s safe seats, this time Jalna, Maharashtra’s ‘mosambi hub’, witnessed a high-profile electoral war between a central minister and his old political foe from the Congress.
In 2014 and 2019, the Congress changed its candidate, fielding Vilas Autade, which proved to be a boon for the BJP, and Danve increased his winning margins massively – 17 per cent and 28 per cent, respectively.
At that time, of course, he was ably aided by the two-consecutive PM Modi ‘waves’ in the country, which also considerably consolidated the BJP’s influence over Jalna, as in other parts of the state.
Though the circumstances have changed drastically in the last 15 years, with no perceptible wave around now, this time Jalna is also simmering with Maratha anger arising out of the six-month-long agitation launched here from August 2023.
Sprawled across two districts, Jalna and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, the Jalna constituency comprises six Assembly segments, of which three are held by the BJP, two by ruling ally Shiv Sena and one by the Congress.
They are the BJP’s Phulambri (MLA Haribhau Bagade), Bhokardan (MLA Santosh Danve, son of Raosaheb Danve), Badnapur-SC (MLA Narayan Kuche); Shiv Sena’s Sillod (MLA Abdul Sattar) and Paithan (MLA Sandipan Bhumre, currently contesting the adjoining Aurangabad LS seat); and Congress’ Jalna (MLA Kailash Gorantyal).
A commercial hub with a rich history, Jalna is famed in the state for its luscious and highest production of ‘mosambis’ (sweet lemons) which are savoured across the country and even abroad, its powerloom-handloom units, the thriving beedi industry, hybrid-seeds manufacturing, steel-rolling mills, etc.
