Polls to 29 seats: MVA set to take control of Council

The three-party Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government is set to change the equation in the legislative Council of the state.

The three-party Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government is set to change the equation in the legislative Council of the state.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the single-largest party with 22 members in the 78-seat upper house. The upper house will see the election to 29 seats in the next six-seven months, of which the BJP is likely to win only eight-nine seats, as it has lost power and snapped ties with the Shiv Sena. It means the MVA will establish control over the upper house of state legislature.

The party, when in power with the Sena until October 2019, was looking to install its chairman, as the saffron alliance was just one member short of majority.

Ahead of the Assembly elections in October, not just the members of legislative Assembly, but several members of the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party in the legislative council, too, joined the BJP or Shiv Sena. Congress’s Amrish Patel, Chandrakant Raghuvanshi, Haribhau Rathod and NCP’s Ramrao Wadkute resigned from the party. Their seats are now empty.

Also, some MLCs – Chandrakant Patil and Rahul Narvekar (BJP), Dhananjay Munde (NCP) and Tanaji Sawant (Shiv Sena) – have been elected to the assembly. This has resulted in seven vacant seats. Besides, 12 Governor-appointed members of the Council are retiring, as their six-year tenure ends in July.

Other members are to be elected by newly elected MLAs, graduates, teachers and local bodies between April and July.

“The 12 members to be nominated by the Governor are usually appointed by ruling parties from their own cadre. This means the three ruling parties will nominate four members each to the council. Had the BJP-Sena got a second term, the BJP would have had six-nine members, but now it cannot win even a single seat. Similarly, of the 10 members to be elected from the MLAs, the BJP can win only four seats. Of the seven seats to be elected from local bodies, teachers and graduate constituencies, the ruling parties have a chance of winning most of them. Had it been the BJP-Sena government, the BJP would have benefitted,” said a senior BJP leader.

BJP’s senior legislator Vijay Girkar said, “We will lose a few seats in the upper house as we don’t have power. We will however try to win maximum seats from the local body, graduates’ and teachers’ constituencies.”

The Sena, NCP and Congress will jointly fight the council elections to win maximum seats. “With three parties fighting together, our collective strength in council and even in local

bodies such as district councils, panchayat samitis will increase in the next few years,” said Congress MLC Anant Gadgil.