Congress leaders who troubled me lost Maharashtra polls: BJP MP Ashok Chavan

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Nov 25 (PTI) BJP Rajya Sabha MP and former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan on Monday said state Congress leaders who he claimed troubled him when he was with the grand old party have lost the just held assembly polls.

Addressing a meeting of his supporters in Nanded, the former Congress leader said people had criticised him for joining the BJP, but the party managed to sweep the one-sided election.

The BJP-led Mahayuti put up a stellar show in the state elections by winning 230 out of 288 seats, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi, comprising the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP), received a drubbing, as it managed just 46 seats.

Congress won just 16 seats, with even its senior leaders Prithviraj Chavan and Balasaheb Thorat biting the dust in Karad South and Sangamner seats, respectively.

Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole won by a wafer-thin margin of 208 votes from the Sankoli seat.

"Former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and former revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat lost the elections. All those who troubled me were defeated. So no one should trouble me," the BJP leader said.

Ashok Chavan's daughter Sreejaya, who made her poll debut, won the Bhokar assembly seat in Nanded by 50,551 votes.

"I worked wholeheartedly wherever I was. People told me my decision to switch (to BJP) was wrong. But now you see that the party has won this one-sided election," said Ashok Chavan, who joined the saffron party in February ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

He further pointed out that Congress's sitting MLA Amit Deshmukh managed to retain the Latur City seat by a narrow margin, while his younger brother Dhiraj lost Latur Rural by 6,000 votes.

"The Maharashtra state unit president (Nana Patole) shouted my name here and went back but managed to win by only a slim margin. These leaders said they would take decisions for Maharashtra," Chavan said. PTI AW ARU