Nagpur South West Assembly Election Results 2024: It's Deva bhau again for this BJP stronghold! Fadnavis wins by huge margin

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has won from the Nagpur South West assembly seat in Maharashtra by a huge margin against Congress' Prafulla Gudadhe-Patil. Fadnavis bagged his seat by securing more than 1.24 lakh votes as against Prafulla Patil's 87,234 votes. 

With this, Fadnavis got elected from the BJP stronghold for the fourth straight term and defeated Prafulla Patil by a margin of 37,702 votes in the constituency. Devendra Fadnavis bagged a vote share of 56.70 per cent whereas Prafulla Gudadhe-Patil secured a vote share of 39.59 per cent, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI). 

With this, his standing in the Chief Ministerial race gets all the more bolstered. Fadnavis, along with the incumbent CM Eknath Shinde, is the frontrunner for the CM post in the ruling Mahayuti alliance. 

In this BJP vs Congress contest, Fadnavis banked on the development plank and the Ladki Bahin scheme of the Mahayuti government. Gudadhe, on the other hand, hoped to capitalise on the anti-incumbency sentiment among the voters. 

The constituency is home to many big ticket establishments including Nagpur Metro AIIMS, IIM Nagpur and Multi Modal International Cargo Hub (MIHAN), which can work to Fadnavis' advantage. 

The Nagpur South West assembly constituency comprises about one lakh Dalits, 70,000 kunbis, 60,000 Brahmins, 30,000 Telis and 20,000 Mali voters. This might help Patil immensely in the contest against the Deputy CM, who is a Brahmin. 

This, however, is not the first time that the two have faced off against one another. Fadnavis defeated Gudadhe-Patil in the 2014 assembly elections by a margin of more than 58,000 votes. 

In this election, Fadnavis won the BJP stronghold for the second time by securing 1.13 lakh votes and a vote share of 59.21 per cent. Fadnavis won the seat for the third consecutive time in 2019, albeit, with a reduced vote share. 

In 2019, Devendra Fadnavis won from the seat with over 1.09 lakh votes in his kitty and a vote share of 56.86 per cent. The firebrand BJP leader won the seat by a margin of more than 49,000 votes. 

The Nagpur South West contest is critical for Fadnavis not only to secure a fourth term but also because it is located in Vidarbha, dubbed as Pennsylvania of Maharashtra. The party which gets the most seats in Vidarbha gets to rule Maharashtra. 

The Nagpur South West fight is a crucial one for the Congress as it has never been able to make inroads ever since the assembly seat was carved out in 2009. The Congress has seen its vote share fluctuate in this constituency.