Kagal Assembly constituency is one of the 10 seats in the district of Kolhapur in Maharashtra. The seat, which has more than 2.6 lakh registered voters, has been dominated by the united Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) since 1999.
The seat falls under the Kolhapur Lok Sabha constituency, which has 5 more seats- Chandgad, Radhanagari, Kolhapur South, Karvir and Kolhapur North.
The constituency has a total of 97 polling centres to ensure a smooth polling process for voters, according to the Maharashtra election commission.
Demography
Kolhapur district has a total of 10 assembly constituencies with a population of over 3.8 million, according to the 2011 Census data. Kagal seat had a total of 264,332 eligible voters in the 2019 state elections, out of which over 128,000 were women.
The seat, which is unreserved was established in 1962. The constituency covers the entire Kagal tehsil and several parts of the Ajra and Gadhinglaj tehsils.
The other constituencies in the Kolhapur district are Shirol, Chandgad, Radhanagari, Kolhapur South, Karveer, Kolhapur North, Shahuwadi, Hatkanangale and Ichalkaranji.
Key contenders
Hasan Miyalal Mushrif of the NCP has been winning the seat since 1999. Mushrif, who won the seat in the 2019 Assembly elections with a margin of over 28,000 and secured 44.17 percent of the votes, is currently with the Ajit Pawar faction of the NCP.
In the 2019 elections, Mushrif defeated independent candidate Vikramsinh Samarjeetsinh Ghatge, who had secured 88,303 votes.
Historically, Congress won the seat continuously till 1995, except for once in 1978.
In 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections, Mushrif will again face Ghatge, who is representing Sharad Pawar’s faction of NCP.
Other candidates in the fray are: BSP’s Ashok Bapu Shivsharan, Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi’s Dhanaji Ramchandra Senapatikar and several independent candidates.
MVA, which is the opposition bloc representing Shive Sena (Udhav Thackeray faction), Congress, Sharad Pawar’s NCP, is locked in a close contest with the ruling Mahayuti (BJP, Ajit Pawar’s NCP, Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena) front in the elections to the 288-member assembly on November 20.
Votes will be counted three days later, on November 23.
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