Maharashtra’s 7 Rajya Sabha seats may see unopposed elections

Of the 55 Rajya Sabha seats going to polls on March 26, seven are from Maharashtra and the last date of filing nomination is March 13.

With the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fielding candidates as per their strength, members for seven seats of the Rajya Sabha are likely to be elected unopposed. The BJP may get its three MPs elected to Rajya Sabha, while the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress are likely to get four seats.

Shiv Sena is considering Priyanka Chaturvedi, party spokesperson who joined the party last year after quitting the Congress, for the only seat it is contesting. (Kunal Patil/HT Photo)

Of the 55 Rajya Sabha seats going to polls on March 26, seven are from Maharashtra and the last date of filing nomination is March 13. The RS members are to be elected by 288 MLAs in the lower house of the state legislature. The required number of votes to get an RS seat elected is 37. With the changed equations in the state, the three ruling parties can send their four members collectively on the basis of their number of the MLAs. The MVA’s collective tally is 170 members against the required number of 148 MLAs to win four seats.

The NCP, which has 54 members in the Assembly, is likely to field two candidates, while Sena (56 MLAs) and Congress (44) will field one candidate each. The BJP has 105 MLAs, with support of another nine MLAs in the lower house.

Besides its party chief Sharad Pawar contesting again, the NCP is believably considering former Maharashtra minister Fauziya Khan for the second seat. The Congress’s state leadership has reportedly submitted a list of three to four leaders to the party’s central leadership for the election. “Rajiv Satav, Mukul Wasnik and Hussain Dalwai are being considered for the seat. Although we were demanding two of the four seats the alliance is contesting, the NCP pointed at our number in the Assembly. They said the number of their retiring MPs was two,” said a top Congress leader, on condition of anonymity.

Like the Congress, the state leadership of the BJP, too, met its central leadership and discussed the probable names. According to party insiders, the BJP has finalised names of Union minister Ramdas Athawale from Republican Party of India (A), former Satara MP Udayanraje Bhosale, who defected from the NCP to join the BJP and lost the Lok Sabha by-polls in October last year. For the third seat, the party may hand pick from between Vijaya Rahatkar, former state women’s commission chairman, and former state minister Eknath Khadse. Party insiders also believe the third BJP candidate could also be from outside the state.

The Shiv Sena is considering Priyanka Chaturvedi, party spokesperson who joined the party last year after quitting the Congress, for the only seat it is contesting. The party could also pick Chandrakant Khaire and Anandrao Adsul, who lost the Lok Sabha elections last year. “With the support of our allies and independents, we can easily win three seats that require 111 votes. As the MVA does not have sufficient votes for the fifth seat, they will field only four candidates and in such a scenario, the RS polls are likely to go uncontested,” said a senior BJP leader.