Pune is one of the keenly watched Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. According to the Election Commission of India (ECI) website, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Murlidhar Mohol is leading by 11,449 votes over Congress nominee Ravindra Dhangekar as per the 11am update. Currently, Mohol has 62,097 votes while Dhangekar has 50,648. Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi's (VBA) Vasant More is in third place with 6,878 votes.
Constituency at glance
Since 1952, a Congress fortress 10 times, the Pune Lok Sabha seat had deserted the party on at least 7 occasions, aligning with some prevalent political 'wave' or a prominent candidate.
The city has sent four union ministers from here - NV Gadgil, Mohan Dharia, VN Gadgil, Suresh Kalmadi, besides a High Commissioner to the UK, NG Goray.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP's Anil Shirole won the seat from the two-time Congress MP Kalmadi who came under a cloud of corruption, and in 2019, Bapat defeated Congress rival Mohan Joshi.
Hoping to woo the electorate, all major political leaders have vigorously campaigned here including BJP's Modi and Nitin Gadkari, Congress' Rahul Gandhi and Nana Patole, Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Uddhav Thackeray, Aditya Thackeray and Sushma Andhare, and NCP (SP)'s Sharad Pawar, Supriya Sule. However, this time both the Congress and BJP are wary of More's entry as in 2019, the VBA in partnership with the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) had cut out a chunk of Congress votes.
Renowned as the cultural, academic and IT capital of the state, Pune LS comprises six assembly seats of which four are held by BJP, one by ruling ally NCP and one by Congress. They are BJP's Pune Cantonment-SC (MLA Sunil Kamble), Parvati (MLA Madhuri Misal), Kothrud (MLA Chandrakant Patil) and Shivajinagar (MLA Siddharth Shirole); NCP's Vadgaon-Sheri (MLA Sunil Tingre), and Congress' Kasba Peth (MLA Ravindra Dhangekar). Incidentally, all three main rivals - Dhangekar, Mohol and More - are veterans of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), one of the biggest corporations in the country, and have their fingers on the public pulse.
