The ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra won nine out of the 11 Legislative Council seats for which elections took place on Friday, reported The Indian Express. The coalition comprises the Bharatiya Janata Party, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party group.
Polling for the biennial elections for the Upper House of the state legislature was held between 9 am and 4 pm. The counting of votes began after 5 pm.
All 274 members of the Legislative Assembly cast their votes to elect 11 members to the council. A total of 12 candidates were in the fray. Maharashtra’s Assembly has 288 members but 14 seats are vacant.
A candidate needed 23 first-preference votes to secure victory.
The BJP had fielded five candidates for the polls. All five, including Pankaja Munde, the daughter of late party leader Gopinath Munde, were declared winners. Pankaja Munde had lost the Beed Lok Sabha seat in the general elections in June.
Two candidates of Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party faction – Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar – also won the polls.
Krupal Tumane and Bhavana Gawli of the Shinde Sena were also declared winners.
From the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi, the Congress had fielded one candidate and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) was supporting Jayant Patil of the Peasants and Workers Party.
On July 2, in a surprise move, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) fielded one more candidate on behalf of the Opposition alliance. This had led to speculation that there could be cross-voting in the polls.
Among the Opposition candidates, Congress’ Pradnya Satav and Thackeray Sena’s Milind Narvekar won one seat each.
The election to the Upper House came months before the Assembly polls.
Currently, the BJP is the largest party in the Assembly with 103 members, followed by the Shinde Sena (38), Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (42), Congress (37), Thackeray Sena (15) and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (10).
After the results of the MLC polls became clear, Shinde said in the Assembly that the Maha Vikas Aghadi was busy with “infighting” while the Mahayuti “ensured that our three parties’ candidates would win”, reported The Indian Express.
Ajit Pawar, on the other hand, said that Mahayuti should get “such success in the Vidhan Sabha as well”, reported ANI.
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