In a bitterly fought contest in Thane for a Legislative Council seat, the Shiv Sena’s Ravindra Phatak on Tuesday defeated Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) veteran Vasant Davkhare. Of the 1,057 votes cast, Mr. Phatak received 601 votes while his rival won 450 votes. The election was held on June 3.
Mr. Davkhare, a former deputy chairman of the Legislative Council, had been winning the seat for the last 24 years and is known to have friends across party lines. This was to be his last election.
“This victory is the result of the trust shown on me by Uddhav sahib . I dedicate this win to the late Bal Thackeray. Defeating a strong candidate like him [Vasant Davkhare] was not easy, but thanks to the unity shown by Sena and BJP, we managed to snatch victory,” Mr. Phatak said.
A close aide of former Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Narayan Rane, Mr. Phatak had switched to the Sena prior to the last assembly polls. In 2014, when the Sena and the BJP fought the elections independently, he contested from Thane city on a Sena ticket but lost to the BJP’s Sanjay Kelkar.