Council polls: 5 Mahayuti candidates set to be elected unopposed

Mumbai: Five nominees of the ruling Mahayuti alliance are expected to be elected unopposed to the legislative council as no opposition party has fielded candidates for any of the seats. The official announcement regarding the election of the five members is expected on March 20, the last day of withdrawal of nominations.

The five seats fell vacant after members from the ruling alliance – three from the BJP and one each from Shiv Sena and NCP – were elected to the legislative assembly in November 2024. Since the pending terms for the five MLCs were different, the new MLCs who get elected in their place on March 27 will also have different tenures.

BJP’s Dadarao Keche, Sandeep Joshi and Sanjay Kenekar, who will be accommodated in place of Gopichand Padalkar, Ramesh Karad and Pravin Datke, will get 14 months in office. NCP’s Sanjay Khodke, who will take Rajesh Vitekar’s place, will get more than five years in the upper house while Shiv Sena’s Chandrakant Raghuvanshi, who will take Amashya Padvi’s place, will have around three years in office.

All the five candidates of the ruling alliance filed their nomination papers on Monday, the last day for filing nominations, in the presence of senior leaders. The state legislature has received a sixth nomination from an independent, which is likely to be dismissed during scrutiny as it is not backed by signatures of at least 10 MLAs, said an official.

At present, the 78-member house has only 52 MLCs. Of them, 32 are from Mahayuti [BJP - 19, Shiv Sena - 6 and NCP – 7], 17 are from the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi [Congress – 7, NCP(SP) - 3, and Shiv Sena (UBT) -7] and three seats are held by independents. Among the 78 members, 30 are elected by members of the legislative assembly, 22 are elected from urban and rural local bodies, seven each are elected from teachers and graduate constituencies, while 12 are nominated by the governor. Since most of the local bodies have no elected bodies, no MLCs have been elected from them for the past few years.

The Mahayuti’s strength in the 78-member legislative council is 52 [BJP - 19, Shiv Sena - 6 and NCP – 7], while the opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi has 17 seats [Congress – 7, NCP(SP) - 3, and Shiv Sena (UBT) -7] and three seats are held by independents. Among the 78 members, 30 were elected by members of the legislative assembly, 22 were elected from urban and rural local bodies, seven each were elected from teachers and graduate constituencies, while 12 were nominated by the governor.

The ruling alliance’s strength will go up to 57 once the five new members take oath.

The nominations by BJP have a clear imprint of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis as the three candidates are close aides of the CM. The NCP opted for Sanjay Khodke, a close confidant of deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, over former MLA Zeeshan Siddique, spokesperson Umesh Patil, and Sanjay Daund, while the Shiv Sena opted for Chandrakant Raghuvanshi over the party’s Nagpur-based leader Kiran Pandav and its office secretary Sanjay More.

Opposition parties did not file any nomination for want of adequate numbers in the legislative assembly.

“Council members are elected by legislative assembly members and the minimum quota for election of seats is 58 members. But the opposition’s strength in the lower house is 50 and we cannot win even a single seat even if we fight together,” said a Congress leader.