Nagpur: The previous Lok Sabha elections in 2009 sent four Congress nominees, three Shiv Sena, two BJP and one NCP candidate to New Delhi.
But the NCP candidate Praful Patel from Bhandara-Gondia constituency won by a highest margin of 2,51,915 votes while Mukul Wasnik of Congress from Ramtek polled the lowest (16,701 votes) among the 10 candidates in Vidarbha region.
Wasnik had migrated from Buldana and contested for the first time from Ramtek (Reserve) constituency.
The Congress had an impressive tally of four on its own and one ally in NCP from Bhandara-Gondia.
The Sena-BJP combine had equal shares of five seats in the region.
Marotrao Kowase of Congress was the lone new face among the 10 as he won from newly carved out Gadchiroli seat meant for tribals (ST) after the de-limitation of Lok Sabha constituencies which reduced to 10 from 11 seats in 2004 General Elections.
Veteran Congress leader Datta Meghe from Wardha occupied second spot with highest votes of margin when he mustered 95,918 votes while BJP`s sitting MP Sanjay Dhotre scored 64,848 votes to take third place, Anandrao Adsul (Sena) got 61,716 votes and sitting MP Bhawna Gawali (Sena) received 56,951 votes from Yavatmal Constituency.
The other four contestants including six time MP Vilas Muttemwar (Nagpur), who recorded victory margin below 35,000 votes. BJP sitting MP Hansraj Ahir won by a margin of 32,495 while first-timer Kowase won by 28,586. Buldana Sena nominee`s victory margin was by 28,078 votes, according to statistics available here.
As many as 194 contestants were in the fray from 10 constituencies including 95 independents.
The highest number of 28 contestants were from Yavatmal followed by Nagpur (27) while Akola and Gadchiroli constituencies had 11 each candidates.
Nagpur witnessed a large number of (14) independents in the field among 27 candidates.
