Parties out to settle scores in legislative council election
Ostensibly, the fight is on for 11 seats between the Mahayuti and the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA), but the ruling coalition has fielded nine candidates while the Opposition three. None of the 12 has withdrawn from the fray even as the deadline to file nominations ended on Friday
MUMBAI The biennial election to 11 seats to Maharashtra legislative council has taken an interesting turn as undercurrents have emerged, with party leaders out to “teach a lesson to betrayers”.
Ostensibly, the fight is on for 11 seats between the Mahayuti and the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA), but the ruling coalition has fielded nine candidates while the Opposition three. None of the 12 has withdrawn from the fray even as the deadline to file nominations ended on Friday.
The election is slated for July 12, in which 274 members of the state assembly will elect 11 members of the legislative council through preferential voting.
Although MVA leaders claim they are confident that all three candidates will be elected, insiders have said there is a tussle within – earlier only two candidates were selected but Shiv Sena (UBT) decided to field a third one.
“We have 65 MLAs between three parties. We were planning to contest two seats which would have been easy wins – one from Congress (Pradnya Satav) and another from other allies. NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar picked Jayant Patil of Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) which joined the MVA before the elections. However, Uddhav Thackeray was opposed Patil’s candidature arguing that his own candidate Anant Geete received no support from PWP in Raigad district in the Lok Sabha election,” said an insider.
Thackeray picked his personal assistant Milind Narvekar, who is known to get along with leaders across party lines, as his candidate. “It looks like we will manage to get 26-27 votes, more than what is needed to get elected in the first round itself,” said a close aide of Narvekar.
Meanwhile, grapevine has it that both Jayant Patil and from the ruling coalition, NCP (Ajit Pawar) candidate Shivajirao Garje are likely to be in the red with the popular Narvekar’s entry.
Garje was in the eye of the storm when the legal battle was on between two NCP factions over the party’s name before the Election Commission of India. At the time the Pawar faction had told EC that documents related to his unanimous election as the party chief in September 2022 went missing from the party office. All eyes fell on Garje, who was in-charge of the party office, and switched allegiance to the Ajit Pawar camp when the party split up. The Pawar faction could not show the official record of the internal election, following which EC handed over the name of the party to the Ajit Pawar-led faction.
“Garje was in charge of the NCP office. It looks like he is being rewarded for something he did at the time of the split. My best wishes to him,” remarked NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar while speaking to the media on Friday.
Another Sharad Pawar faction legislator said the party would try to ensure that Jayant Patil is elected. “There are a few MLAs in Ajit dada’s faction who are keen to return to us. We are tapping the possibility of them voting for our candidate since it is a secret ballot. In this process, Garje may become a collateral damage,” he said.
A minister from Ajit Pawar-led NCP said the party has decided to give 24 first preference votes to its candidate Rajesh Vitekar and remaining for the second candidate, Garje. “We are talking to smaller parties to get the required votes for Garje,” he said. “We are aware that he could be targeted by the Pawar faction and hence trying to offer him support.”