Shiv Sena retains Palghar assembly seat in Maharashtra

The Shiv Sena on Tuesday retained the Palghar assembly seat as its candidate Amit Ghoda trounced his nearest Congress rival Rajendra Gavit by nearly 19,000 votes.

The death of Ghoda's father and sitting Sena legislator Krishna Ghoda on May 24 last year necessitated the by-election in a predominantly tribal constituency.

Ghoda bagged 67,129 votes compared with Gavit's 48,181 votes. Former Shiv Sena leader Manisha Nimkar, who fought on a Bahujan Vikas Aghadi ticket, trailed with 36,781 votes.

Chandrakant Vartha, the CPIM nominee bagged 4,865 votes and Dilpee Dumada of Bahujan Mukti Party got 1,417 votes, with 3,162 voters choosing the 'None Of The Above' option.

Sena's ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party, did not contest the by-election. BJP candidate Premchand Gond stood third in the October 2014 assembly elections.

Voting was held on February 13, in which 161,535 of the total 2.47 lakh voters or 65.25 percent exercised their franchise. Nearly 69 percent votes were polled in the 2014 assembly polls in the constituency.

In the last assembly elections, Krishna Ghoda won the seat by just 526 votes, prompting defeated Congress candidate Rajendra Gavit to challenge the result in a court of law, the outcome of which is awaited.

Krishna Ghoda was twice a Congress legislator from the constituency but lost once in 2009 as a Nationalist Congress Party nominee. He defected to the Shiv Sena just before the October 2014 assembly elections.