IN THE MAJOR LEAGUE NOW

So far, the state was their playground. The June 4 verdict has elevated them to play in the nationals

- Prashant Srivastava, Ajay Sukumaran, Dhaval S. Kulkarni, Amarnath K. Menon, Kaushik Deka, Rahul Noronha, Jeemon Jacob, Rohit Parihar and Amitabh Srivastava

THE DEBUTANTS EX-LEGISLATORS

VISVESHWARA HEGDE KAGERI, 62 | BJP | Uttara Kannada, Karnataka

A six-term MLA till his victory run—on since 1994—was halted in 2023 in his picture-pretty Malnad home base of Sirsi; a minister in the BJP’s first government in Karnataka; speaker in 2019. The Havyaka Brahmin law graduate became a comfortable fallback for the BJP when it had to hastily drop its six-term Uttara Kannada MP Anant Hegde after his remarks about “changing the Constitution”.

VASANTRAO CHAVAN, 69 CONGRESS | Nanded, Maharashtra

Sarpanch of his village, Naigaon; two terms in the state legislative council; MLA in 2009…such was the resume of the Chavan picked to fill the giant hole left by another Chavan. In 2019, the BJP’s Pratap Patil Chikhalikar had delivered a shock defeat to Ashok Chavan in his very fortress—the chance of a revenge match evaporated when the ex-CM migrated to the BJP. The new Chavan was meant only to put up a semblance of a fight against Chikhalikar. But the buzzphrase ‘Lokanni nivadnuk hatat ghetliaahe (The people have taken the elections into their hands)’ lit up Nanded, and the tide turned.

BALWANT WANKHADE, 56 | CONGRESS | Amravati, Maharashtra