East Nagpur: BJP fortress since 2009

 

 

 

The East Nagpur Assembly seat has been a stronghold of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2009. BJP’s Krishna Khopde has won this seat in three consecutive elections. In the 2019 Assembly elections, Khopde secured victory with 52.35 percent of the vote and defeated Congress candidate Purushottam Hazare by around 25,000 votes. The East Nagpur Assembly seat was established in 1978, with elections held for the first time in the same year. The seat has been considered a stronghold of the Congress party for years. From its formation until 2004, Congress candidates consistently won elections in this constituency. In 1978, Banwarilal Purohit was the first elected representative. Later, Satish Chaturvedi won five times and Avinash Pandey once, both on Congress tickets. Since 2009, BJP’s Krishna Khopde has been winning elections from this constituency.

 

 

East Nagpur is an industrial area, home to all the wholesale markets of the city, as well as a small factory area. The constituency is also home to Central India’s largest grain market, the Agriculture Produce Market Committee, Kalamna. In the 2009 elections, Krishna Khopde garnered 88,814 votes (55.2%), while Satish Chaturvedi received 53,598 votes (33.3%). Bahujan Samaj Party’s GM Khan received 5,252 votes (3.3%). In 2014, Krishna Khopde maintained his margin, bagging 99,136 votes (53.7%), while Congress’s Abhijeet Wanjari received 50,522 votes (27.4%).

 

Bahujan Samaj Party’s candidate, Dilip Rangari, came in third with 12,164 votes (6.6%). In the 2019 elections, the Congress party’s vote share increased by almost 15 per cent but it did not upset the BJP’s stronghold. Krishna Khopde received 103,992 votes (53.3%), while Congress’ Purushottam Hajare received 79,975 votes (41.0%), and BSP’s Sagar Lokhande received 5,284 votes (2.7%). In the past three elections, the BJP has maintained a vote share of around 53 per cent, while the Congress party’s share has shown a mixed trend, fluctuating from 27 per cent to 41 per cent. The BSP’s vote share has remained steady, ranging from 3 per cent to 6 per cent. The constituency has seen a direct contest between INC and BJP in the last three elections, and a similar battle is likely to occur in upcoming polls.