Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis wins from Nagpur South West

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday secured a comfortable victory from the Nagpur South West constituency. He was pitted against Ashish Deshmukh of the Congress, who was formerly a BJP Member of Legislative Assembly. Deshmukh is considered a staunch supporter of the demand for a separate state of Vidarbha. There were 20 candidates in the fray, including Bahujan Samaj Party's Vivek Hadke, Amol Hadke of Aam Aadmi Party, Ravi Shende of Prakash Ambedkar's Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi. 

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The Nagpur South West constituency 

Falling under Nagpur district of Maharashtra, this seat is a part of the Vidarbha region. The Maharashtra CM has been winning the constituency since 2009. His victory margin against Vilas Pandurang Thakre of Congress in the 2009 election was more than 27,000. This was followed by his spectacular victory over Prafulla Gudadhe. The vote difference between Fadnavis and Gudadhe (58,942 votes) was more than what Gudadhe received (54,976 votes) in the election. As the Maharashtra CM was seeking a mandate for the second term, it was a prestigious contest.  

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Maharashtra polls 

In 2014, BJP won 122 seats and formed a minority government, with the unconditional support of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). However, SS soon agreed to a post-poll alliance with BJP and joined the government. While the BJP is contesting on 150 seats, its alliance partner Shiv Sena is fighting the elections from 124 constituencies. On the other hand, Congress and the NCP also have a tie-up. The total strength of the Maharashtra Assembly is 288, out of which nine seats are reserved for SC and five for the ST category. In total, Maharashtra has 8.94 crore registered voters, out of which 1.16 lakh are service voters. Around 1.8 lakh ballot units, 1.28 lakh control units, and 1.39 lakh VVPATs were used in the election. According to the last updated voting turnout figures, Maharashtra registered a voting percentage of 60.83%, which was a drop from the 2014 Assembly election turnout.

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