Thane: As the counting in the high-stakes Kopri-Pachapakhadi constituency concluded on Saturday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde was declared the winner. Shinde, who represents the Shiv Sena, received 159060 votes, over 1.2 lakh more than his close opponent, Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Kedar Prakash Dighe, who received more than 38343 votes.
This was the first election after Shinde triggered a vertical split in the Shiv Sena and allied with the BJP. Shinde, who was elected to the Maharashtra Assembly from Thane's Kopri-Pachpakhadi constituency in 2009, sought re-election. He was running on a Shiv Sena ticket, which has the backing of the BJP and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) as part of the Mahayuti coalition.
Shinde won the seat on three occasions on an undivided Shiv Sena ticket. He was elected as an MLA from Thane in the 2004 elections on an undivided Shiv Sena ticket.
The seat comes in an urban area, and the voters are middle- and upper-middle-class families. This election was a straight battle between two Shiv Sena factions as the Shiv Sena (UBT) fielded Dighe, nephew of late Shiv Sena leader Anand Dighe.
Shinde considers the late Dighe as his mentor, and so in the upcoming polls, he was directly taking on the nephew of his mentor. Also, the Maratha quota is an important issue in the 2024 Assembly polls, and it remains to be seen if Eknath Shinde can retain the Kopri-Pachpakhadi seat.
