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Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi parties to contest against BJP in polls for 6 MLC seats today
There are three seats from the graduates’ constituencies (Aurangabad, Pune and Nagpur), two from teachers’ constituencies (Pune and Amravati), and one from the local bodies’ constituency in Dhule-Nandurbar that will go for polls on Tuesday
The elections for six legislative Council seats from the graduates, teachers and local bodies’ constituencies will be held on Tuesday, while the counting of votes will take place on Thursday.
The elections assume great significance as the three ruling parties in the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) – the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress – are contesting the polls together against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
There are three seats from the graduates’ constituencies (Aurangabad, Pune and Nagpur), two from teachers’ constituencies (Pune and Amravati), and one from the local bodies’ constituency in Dhule-Nandurbar that will go for polls on Tuesday.
In the Nagpur and Pune graduates’ constituencies, there is a direct fight between the MVA and BJP candidates.
While in the Aurangabad constituency, NCP candidate Satish Chavan has an edge over his rival candidates, in Dhule-Nandurbar, BJP’s Amrish Patel is in a ‘safe position’, their respective party insiders have said. In the Amravati teachers’ constituency, Sena’s Shrikant Deshpande, who is the sitting legislator, has an edge over other candidates.
There are around 2.65 lakh voters in the Nagpur graduates’ constituency, while 19 candidates are in the fray from here. In Pune, around 4.26 lakh graduates would cast their ballot for 62 candidates. In Aurangabad, there are 3.73 lakh voters and 35 candidates. The Amravati and Pune teachers’ constituencies have 35,622 and 72,545 teachers as voters respectively.
For the Dhule-Nandurbar seat, 437 voters, including legislators and elected representatives of local self-governing bodies, will cast their votes. The by-election was necessitated after Congress legislator Amrish Patel quit the party to join BJP last year in October.
