NEW DELHI: The alliance emerged successful in the MLC elections by winning all the seats it contested.
The ruling Mahayuti alliance, comprising of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by Ajit Pawar, clinched a surprising victory on all of its 9 Member of Legislative Council (MLC) seats it contested on Friday despite falling short of 28 lawmakers.
The election was necessitated for 11 members of the legislative council (MLCs) (with 12 members vying for them) as they are set to complete their six-year terms on July 27.
Although the electoral college for these polls comprised of the strength of Maharashtra Assembly, the required votes were divided according to the current strength of 274 members. Therefore, each winning candidate required a quota of 23 first-preference votes.
In addition to that, Mahayuti had fielded nine candidates and MVA fielded three, making contest on one seat depend on cross- voting or second-preference-votes. With BJP boasting 103 MLAs and fielding five candidates, the saffron camp secured four seats, in theory, just short of the fifth. Similarly, the Shiv Sena has 37, meaning it was nine short. And Ajit Pawar’s NCP had 39 and was seven short. This handed Mahayuti a combined deficit of 28 votes for the nine contested seats. However, all the three Mahayuti parties won all the seats it contested, with BJP winning 5, Shinde Sena and Ajit Pawar led NCP pocketing 2 each.
On the other hand, the Congress has 37 MLAs but named only one candidate, giving it 14 surplus votes meant to be distributed amongst its MVA partners. The NCP faction led by Sharad Pawar was supporting Jayant Patil of the Peasants and Workers Party, but its 13 MLAs left it 10 short. Shiv Sena (UBT) put up one candidate too, despite being eight votes short. Maha Vikas Aghadi, had overall fielded 3 candidates, in which the victory on two seats was confirmed and the third seat required outside help of four votes. However, the MVA won only two with Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress winning one each.
A Congress leader said, “MVA was short of four seats in order to win all the three candidates it had put to contest. It seems like the other smaller parties did not vote for us. Moreover, it just a speculation for now that someone of the alliance candidate cross-voted.”
Expressing his happiness, Ajit Pawar stated, “In the Legislative Council elections, we had 42 votes and received 47, gaining five extra votes. We are grateful to those who supported us.”
An MVA leader said, “This election is not semi-final. Had it been an election where people’s voting was involved, we would have taken it as a semi-final. This election took place after a lot of parties were broken and MLAs switched loyalties.”