Former minister from NCP (SP) leads poll race, set to retain cooperative sugar factory in Karad

Kolhapur: Former minister and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) functionary Shamrao alias Balasaheb Patil is set to retain control over the Sahyadri Cooperative Sugar Factory located in Karad tehsil of Satara district.
As many as 26,000 farmer members voted in the polls that took place on Sunday. The factory has around 35,000 farmers as its shareholders, who are eligible to vote.
It has jurisdiction in four tehsils of Satara district and one tehsil of Sangli district.
The factory witnessed its last election in 1997. Since then, the panel led by Patil has won unopposed. However, after nearly two-and-a-half decades, and with his political fortune on the decline, Patil faced two panels in opposition this time round. One was led by Karad North MLA of BJP, Manoj Ghorpade, who had defeated Patil in last year's assembly election, and another panel was led by Dhairyashil Kadam, BJP's Satara district president.
According to polling officials, after the first round at 50 polling booths, all 21 candidates of the Patil-led panel were ahead by an average of 4,000 votes, as per the counting. Patil garnered nearly 8,000 votes at the end of the first round of counting.
Counting was underway for the second and final round at around 49 polling booths.
The poll officials said that at most of the booths, the Patil-led panel was far ahead.
After the first round of counting, celebrations started at Patil's house in Karad. Patil said, "We were confident of winning. We have taken care of the sugarcane farmers. Our factory is the best in the region."
A total of 89 candidates were in the fray for the directors' body of 21.
This season, the Sahyadri Cooperative Sugar Factory crushed around 8.5 lakh tonnes of sugarcane and produced 9.66 lakh tonnes of sugar.