‘BJP leaders believe that the party has an upper hand in the MLC elections’.
NEW DELHI: After a surprising win of the BJP’s third candidate in the Rajya Sabha, the party is set to effectively combine its political manoeuvers and Devendra Fadnavis’ strategy to win the five Maharashtra Legislative Council seats out of the 10. The party can comfortably win 4 seats and needs 29 additional votes for the winner of its fifth candidate which it expects to get from independent MLAs and other smaller parties.
The BJP leaders believe that the party has an upper hand in the coming MLC elections, as earlier in the Rajya Sabha polls where the MLAs were required to show ballot paper to authorised representatives of respective parties, will now have to go through secret ballot. There will be secret ballot voting and MLAs in the Maha Vikas Agadi “may go for cross-voting due to a lot of internal unrest in MVA between NCP, Congress, and Shiv Sena,” a BJP leader said.
The BJP has 106 MLAs in the 288-seat Assembly and in the recently held RS elections, the party surprisingly managed to gain 17 more MLAs which led them to a victory of its third candidate Dhananjay Mahadik, upsetting the Shiv Sena’s second candidate Sanjay Pawar. The other three seats were won one each by NCP, Congress, and Shiv Sena.
BJP vice president of Maharashtra, Narendra Patel, told The Sunday Guardian, “There are many MLAs in Shiv Sena who are angry with the party because a lot of funds have not been released and distributed in their zillas, Chief Minister has to meet every MLA, but he doesn’t even meet his own MLAs. Congress is also facing issues with their leadership as it is not acceptable to its MLAs, their MLAs have different views over the issues that are happening.”
He added, “NCP Sharad Pawar was the planner in Rajya Sabha elections but his planning failed, he started blaming others, but it doesn’t mean his responsibility has changed. BJP winning the third candidate in Rajya Sabha clearly shows that there is an unrest in the alliance and between the MLAs and its leaders, we cannot say which party’s second candidate will lose, whether it is Congress’, NCP’s or Shiv Sena’s, because it’s always the last moment planning that would be done.”
The renominated candidates of the BJP are outgoing MLCs Pravin Darekar and Prasad Lad. The party has also given tickets to Shrikant Bharatiya, Ram Shinde, and Uma Khapre. To get elected to the legislative council, one candidate requires the votes of at least 27 MLAs.
Meanwhile, the BJP has also kept its movement against the MVA alive to frequently leverage its party image in public and independent legislators, which would help them in any coming election in the state. The party leaders say that the opposition leaders of both the houses have always been picking up relevant issues in showing the party’s right image to the public, and also assert how the government is making mistakes, and how corruption has increased during the rule of MVA.