In a tightly contested battle for the Nashik divisional teachers' constituency of the Legislative Council, Mahayuti's Kishor Darade emerged victorious after nearly 24 hours of vote counting. Darade faced a strong challenge from independent candidate Vivek Kolhe but secured a decisive win this morning with a margin of over 9,000 votes against his closest rivals, Vivek Kolhe and Mahagatbandhan's Sandeep Gulve.
In the second round of counting, Mahayuti candidate Kishore Darade held a lead of approximately 8,000 votes. However, due to the first-preference votes not meeting the required quota, the second-preference votes had to be tallied. Darade maintained his lead at the conclusion of this round. In a closely contested race, Shiv Sena's candidate Kishor Darade, supported by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, faced stiff competition from Advocate Sandeep Gulve of the Sena and independent candidate Vivek Kolhe. The counting process initially included all first-preference votes but postponed the declaration of the official quota due to voting confusion.
Vote counting for the teachers' constituency elections began at Ambad's Central Warehousing Corporation on Monday morning. Confusion ensued early on when extra ballot papers were found at three polling stations. Uddhav Sena officials objected, leading to the segregation of the affected ballot box. After counting 30,000 ballots and removing the disputed ones, the process resumed. Despite objections and challenges, the count proceeded without announcing the official status of the contested votes. Police were deployed due to the presence of numerous candidate supporters in the industrial estate area.