Maha bypolls: Early trends show BJP leads in Chinchwad Assembly seat

MUMBAI: The BJP was leading the race for the Chinchwad Assembly seat, according to early trends in the ongoing counting of votes for the Maharashtra Assembly bye-elections. The counting of votes for the Maharashtra bye-elections began at 8 am.

According to the Election Commission, the BJP's Chinchwad candidate Ashwini Laxman Jagtap was leading the NCP's Vitthal aka Nana Kate by 449 votes while Independent candidate Rahul Kalate was trailing at 1276 votes. The polling was held on February 27.

The heavyweights of the contesting parties, including Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar, Shiv Sena UBT's Aditya Thackeray and Congress state chief Nana Patole, have been campaigning extensively and vigorously for their respective party candidates through roadshows, street corner meetings and public rallies in the poll-bound constituencies.

As per data released by the district information office, the total number of voters in the Kasba Peth constituency is 2,75,428 with 1,38, 550 women voters and 1,36,87 male voters and five transgender voters.

In the Chinchwad Assembly constituency, a total of 56,8954 eligible voters cast their votes across 510 pooling booths. Around 1300 police personnel along with all senior officials of the police department were deployed for voting day by the Pune police.

The by-elections were necessitated after the demise of BJP's MLA Laxman Jagtap, from the Chinchwad Assembly constituency, and Mukta Tilak from the Kasba Peth Assembly constituency.