As the dust settles on the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar)’s impressive performance in Maharashtra, winning 8 of the 10 seats contested in the Lok Sabha poll, party leaders feel a confusion over their new party symbol and those allotted to some of the independent candidates may have resulted in the latter cornering a considerable number of votes in at least four seats.
“It seems this symbol was allotted deliberately for the division of votes,” said Maharashtra NCP (SP) chief Jayant Patil.
In July 2023, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) split as party patriarch Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar joined the Eknath Shinde-BJP government in Maharashtra with eight party MLAs. While the Election Commission (EC) awarded the NCP symbol of a ‘clock’ and the party name to the breakaway group, the Sharad Pawar faction, NCP (SP), was given the poll symbol of ‘a man blowing turha’ (a trumpet-like traditional instrument made of brass). Since the beginning of the election campaigning, the party as well as other alliance partners of the Maha Vikas Aghadi went around familiarising voters with the new symbol of turha, referring to it with the Marathi name tutari. But things took a turn when the EC started issuing the symbol of trumpet, which also is called tutari in Marathi, to Independents. The NCP (SP) had to change its outreach programmes. For example, in one of the party workers’ meetings in Karad on April 27, the gathering was told to call the party symbol as the ‘man with a tutari’ and not just ‘tutari’.
“The similarity in the symbol name created confusion among voters. We had raised the issue with the EC in the run-up to the poll, but it didn’t pay any heed,” Mr. Patil said. On April 25, Mr. Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, who fought against her sister-in-law Sunetra Pawar in Baramati, complained to the poll body when independent candidate Soyalshaha Shaikh was given the symbol of trumpet, which is called pipani in Marathi. “In several constituencies, pipani was referred to as tutari,” Mr. Patil said.
While Ms. Sule got 7.32 lakh votes, 1.58 lakh more than her sister-in-law, Mr. Shaikh bagged 14,917 votes.
“In Satara, our candidate lost by about 32,000 votes. The independent rival with pipani cornered over 37,000 votes,” Mr. Patil said. Satara was closely contested between NCP (SP)’s Shashikant Shinde and the BJP’s Udayanraje Bhosale, who got elected with 5.71 lakh votes.
In Madha, where Mohite-Patil Dhairyasheel Rajsinh of NCP (SP) emerged as a winner, around 48,000 votes went to the candidate with the trumpet symbol.
In Dindori, although NCP (SP) candidate Bhaskar Bhagare won against sitting BJP MP Bharati Pawar by over 1.13 lakh votes, the confusion over the symbol seems to have limited the victory margin. Independent candidate Babu Bhagare ‘Sir’ was assigned the trumpet symbol. The ‘Sir’ in his name further added to the confusion.
Prior to joining electoral politics, NCP (SP)’s Bhagare was a schoolteacher. Party leaders alleged that the BJP looked for a namesake and found one Babu Bhagare in Nashik. Then ‘Sir’ was included to his name. While Mr. Bhaskar Bhagare bagged 5.77 lakh votes, Mr. Babu Bhagare (Sir) received 1.03 lakh votes.
Mr. Patil said his party will present its side before the EC on the issue.
