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Polling for 10 MLC seats in Maharashtra today, BJP may target NCP’s Khadse
Elections for 10 vacant seats in the legislative council are scheduled for Monday with 11 candidates — five from the BJP and two each from the Shiv Sena, NCP and the Congress — in the fray
Mumbai: A day ahead of the polling for the 10 Maharashtra legislative council seats, a section of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) was apprehensive that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) might play spoiler to their hopes of getting two candidates elected, people familiar with the development said on Sunday.
Though the contest is mainly for the 10th council seat between the Congress and the BJP — both are short of the numbers required to win a second and a fifth seat respectively — insiders in the NCP suspect the BJP might target Eknath Khadse, who is one of the two NCP candidates and is seen as the most vocal critic of the BJP and particularly opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis.
“BJP can try and target Khadse considering his animosity with the opposition leader. Some of the NCP MLAs or those supporting us may be convinced not to vote for him,” said an NCP leader, requesting anonymity. “This may create trouble for him (Khadse) as the party is already short of one vote if the quota of 26 votes for each of the candidates — Khadse and Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar is determined.”
Elections for 10 vacant seats in the legislative council are scheduled for Monday with 11 candidates — five from the BJP and two each from the Shiv Sena, NCP and the Congress — in the fray. The elections will be held through secret ballot method from an electoral college of MLAs, raising the possibility of horse-trading and cross-voting.
At present, the Shiv Sena has 55 MLAs after one of its legislators Ramesh Latke died last month. NCP has 51 and Congress has 44 legislators in the 288-member legislative assembly. To win a council seat, a candidate will need 26 to 27 votes depending on the votes polled.
“Going by the current strength in the state assembly, barring the Sena, the other two ruling parties (NCP and Congress) require additional votes to get their candidates elected,” said a BJP leader, requesting anonymity. “Sena is already upset with the Rajya Sabha poll results and in no mood to share its surplus votes.”
What has increased the trouble for the NCP is that two of its jailed MLAs —Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik —failed to get permission from the Bombay high court to cast their votes in the elections. Besides, the party lost the Pandharpur assembly seat to the BJP in a bypoll last year.
NCP is banking on three other MLAs — Sanjay Mama Shinde (independent), Shyamsunder Shinde (PWP) and Devendra Bhuyar (Swabhimani Paksha), a party insider said.
“…The party will have to manage five extra votes. It means the contest is really close and if the BJP could manage three to four NCP MLAs or those supporting the NCP to cross-vote, then the equation can change,” the NCP leader quoted above said, referring to the secret ballot system to be used for council polls.
NCP chief spokesperson Mahesh Tapase alleged that the BJP was trying to poach MLAs from the ruling alliance. “BJP is trying to settle scores with NCP by trying to force MLAs not to vote for our candidates, but NCP is geared up fully and confident that both our candidates will get elected,” Tapase said.
The BJP said if Khadse gets defeated, then it means NCP did not want him to win. “NCP will itself try to defeat Khadse because they will have to fulfil all the commitments they would have made to him (Eknath Khadse) at the time of his induction in the party, such as giving a berth in the ministerial council,” said Madhav Bhandari, Maharashtra BJP vice-president. “If Khadseji is defeated then it means the NCP was trying to show that they have fulfilled their commitment, because the party has enough votes to get both (Eknath Khadse and Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar) of its candidates elected. To ensure Khadse’s victory, they can also make him their first preference candidate in the polls.”
Khadse, a former revenue minister in the BJP-Sena government had resigned following allegations of misuse of office and later quit the BJP to join the NCP in 2020. Khadse has been at loggerheads with Fadnavis ever since he stepped down as the minister, blaming the opposition leader for sidelining him in the BJP.
Shiv Sena, meanwhile, has issued a whip, directing all its legislators to vote for the party candidates.
“As we want to secure our people, the legislators will give their first [preference] votes for our candidates,” said a Sena functionary involved in the floor management and planning.
As far as the BJP is concerned, it can easily get four candidates elected but need at least 24 more votes to get the fifth seat. It has fielded Pravin Darekar, Shrikant Bharatiya, Ram Shinde, Uma Khapre and Prasad Lad. The party has 106 votes in the state’s Lower House. In the June 10 Rajya Sabha polls, it secured 123 votes with the help of smaller parties and independent MLAs.
