Shrikant Pangarkar, an accused in the 2017 murder of activist-journalist Gauri Lankesh, won the Jalna Municipal Corporation election on Friday as an Independent candidate in Maharashtra, PTI reported.

Pangarkar defeated Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Raosaheb Dhoble from electoral ward number 13. He secured 2,661 votes, while Dhoble secured 2,477, the news agency quoted an election official as saying.

Counting of votes for 29 civic bodies in Maharashtra, which went to polls a day before, is underway.

Other than Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, most major political parties fielded candidates in the Jalna civic polls.

Ahead of the November 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections, Pangarkar had briefly joined the Shinde-led Shiv Sena. Following widespread criticism, Shinde had put Pangarkar’s induction into the party on hold.

Lankesh, the editor of a periodical named Gauri Lankesh Patrike and a prominent critic of Hindutva groups, was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru’s Rajarajeshwari Nagar by a group of men on the night of September 5, 2017, as she was returning home from work.

Pangarkar was accused of arranging firearms and attending a training camp in the murder case.

In September 2024, the Karnataka High Court granted bail to him, along with Bharat Kurane, Sujith Kumar and Sudhanva Gondhalekar.

Pangarkar was a member of the undivided Shiv Sena. He was the Jalna municipal councillor between 2001 and 2006. He joined the Hindutva organisation Hindu Janjagruti Samiti after being dropped by the party during the 2011 civic elections.

He was also accused of plotting to bomb the Sunburn music festival in Pune in 2017 and was arrested by the Anti-Terrorism Squad in Mumbai in 2018.

In August 2024, the Bombay High Court granted bail to Pangarkar, noting that the alleged conspiracy to bomb the festival was never executed.

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