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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.