Pune district has 21 assembly constituencies, of which 10 are rural constituencies and the urban areas of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad account for the remaining 11. In the 2019 assembly elections in Maharashtra, the BJP had a clear advantage in urban areas. It won eight of the 10 seats and the undivided NCP won the remaining three seats. However, the situation was reversed in rural areas, where the NCP and Congress jointly won nine out of 10 seats, while the BJP won only one seat.
Nine of these 21 seats were won by fewer than 10,000 votes, making them very close races. In rural areas, Junnar, Indapur and Bor were won by the NCP-Congress, while Daund was won by the BJP by a margin of less than 10,000 votes. In urban seats, the BJP won in Shivajinagar, Hadakwasla and Pune Cantonment, while the NCP won in Wadgaon Sheri and Hadapsar by a margin of less than 10,000 votes.
It will be interesting to see how these dynamics play out in the upcoming elections as the NCP split into two factions last year. The Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP has joined forces with the ruling BJP and the Shiv Sena government to form an alliance to contest the elections. Junnar MLA Atul Bhenke, Indapur MLA Dattatray Barane, Vadgaon Sheri MLA Sunil Tingre and Hadapsar MLA Chetan Tupe joined Ajit Pawar’s faction after the split. Harshavardhan Patil, who lost to Dattatray Balan in Indapur on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket in 2019, has joined the Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP and has been nominated as a candidate to contest from Indapur.
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