new delhi of all highprofile candidates in the maharashtra assembly elections those who garnered maximum publicity in the run up to the polls were the scions of major power wielders in the state irrespective of the party they came from some of the most powerful leaders of the state thought it was the right time to blood their fledgling politicos and going by the results rightly sothe list of such candidates comprised names like raosaheb shekhawat son of president pratibha patil praniti shinde amit deshmukh poonam mahajan pankaj bhujbal and pankaja munde the daughter of the formidable late pramod mahajan poonam was the only one to have ended up on the losing sideunlike her brother rahul who has been consumed by his fetish for reality shows on tv poonam came across as a woman who wasnt just eloquent but also meant business however her loss from ghatkopar west to mns ram kadam by over 25000 votes is almost certain to drive down the last nail in her fathers legacypoonam in fact had almost blackmailed the party into giving her the ticket from the constituency against the wishes of local party workers by holding a highprofile meeting with raj thackeray now her defeat by a huge margin is sure to act as a setback for her uncle and senior bjp leader gopinath munde too even though his own daughter pankaja won by a handsome margin of 36000 votes from parlishekhawats allegedly forced candidature from amravati had the congress squirming made obvious further by the fact that neither party president sonia gandhi nor rahul gandhi campaigned for him but president patils son finally scraped through he won by a little over 5000 votes in allowing him to contest from amravati congress denied the ticket to the sitting mla and minister of state for finance sunil deshmukh who had won in 2004 by over 32000 votes the rebel deshmukh contested against shekhawat but fortunately for the party leadership lostformer chief minister and now a union cabinet minister vilasrao deshmukh successfully managed to get his son amit elected from latur city amit won by over 50000 votes it was always considered a safe seat for amit as shiv sena is hardly a force heretwo other such candidates who won easily are senior congress leader sushil shindes daughter pranati from solapur and ncp leader chagan bhujbals son pankaj from nandgaon both of them won by a margin of over 20000 votes