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BELAGAVI: It was down to the wire in the battle for Belagavi, with the last few rounds of counting deciding the winner of the April 17 Lok Sabha byelection here on Sunday.
BJP’s Mangala Angadi, wife of late Union minister Suresh Angadi, defeated Satish Jarkiholi by 5,240 votes after hours of counting turned the contest into a cliffhanger.
Shubham Shelke, the Maharashtra Ekikarna Samiti-backed independent candidate and tacitly supported by ruling Shiv Sena in Maharashtra in this border constituency, divided the dominant Maratha community votes and this led to the close encounter. Shelke secured 1.2 lakh votes which would have traditionally gone to the BJP.
After this assembly election, Seeman’s will be the voice of the opposition,” poll strategist Prashant Kishor had told TOI in the midst of the campaign. Starting off as an extremist with vocal support to LTTE’s Prabhakaran and the cause of the Tamil Eelam (homeland), the former film director has created his own space in Tamil Nadu’s mainstream politics.
Seeman’s Naam Thamizhar Katchi (NTK) hasn’t won a single seat, but it has come third in many. Of the 234 candidates his party fielded, 117 are women.
Through his rabble-rousing speeches, Seeman has built a strong following among educated youth. He has also penetrated micro-communities, which did not have much say in the Dravidian parties. MDMK chief M Vaiko, a vocal supporter of Tamil Eelam, is now part of the DMK front.
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