BJP’s CR Patil wins by 6.89 lakh votes, biggest margin in 2019 Lok Sabha Polls

NEW DELHI: The BJP’s CR Patil came close to shattering the all-time record of victory margin in a parliamentary election when he defeated his Congress rival in Gujarat’s Navsari Lok Sabha seat by a difference of 6.89 lakh votes — the highest in the 2019 polls.nnHis margin was just a shade lower than the 6.96 lakh record set by Pritam Munde in October 2014 when she won the by-election to Beed seat in Maharashtra after the untimely death of her father and former Union minister Gopinath Munde.nnThe lowest margin of victory, too, was with a BJP candidate when Bholanath managed to win the Machhlishahr seat in Uttar Pradesh by only 181 votes.nnBJP won 302 seats out of the 541 in the Lok Sabha polls.nnMr Patil has party colleagues Sanjay Bhatia, Krishan Pal and Subhash Chandra Baheria in the 6-lakh-plus club, while about a dozen other candidates have won by over 5 lakh margin.nnPrime Minister Narendra Modi widened his victory margin to 4.79 lakh votes when he defeated his nearest rival of Shalini Yadav of Samajwadi Party in Varanasi parliamentary constituency. In 2014, he had defeated Arvind Kejriwal by 3.71 lakh votes.nnBJP chief Amit Shah won his maiden Lok Sabha election by a huge margin of 5.57 lakh votes from Gandhinagar in Gujarat this election, better than senior party leader LK Advani’s margin of 4.83 lakh votes in 2014.nnBholanath is followed by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate from Lakshadweep Mohammed Faizal PP, who defeated his near rival by 823 votes.nnBesides, five other candidates won by less than 2,000 votes included former chief minister of Jharkhand Arjun Munda (BJP) and Aparupa Poddar (All India Trinamool Congress).nnAparupa Poddar won Arambagh seat in West Bengal by just 1,142 while Congress’s Kuldeep Rai Sharma defeated his nearest rival BJP’s Vishal Jolly by only 1,407 votes to win the Andaman & Nicobar Islands Lok Sabha seat. Arjun Munda won Khunti in Jharkhand by 1,445 votes.nnThe BJP got winners with huge margins primarily in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh which it swept defeating nearest Congress rivals.nnDuring the 2014 general elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi won his Vadodara seat with the highest margin. He defeated his nearest rival by a huge margin of 5,70,128 votes. He, however, resigned from the seat and retained Varanasi parliamentary constituency where victory margin was 3,71,784.nnThe second-biggest victory margin was of General VK Singh (BJP) from Ghaziabad constituency with winning difference of 5,67,260 votes. The former army chief was followed by C R Patil (BJP), who had won Navsari seat in Gujarat, with a margin of 5,58,116 votes.nnSource: Press Trust of India