Maha guv scraps Uddhav’s upper house nominations, Shinde govt to send new list

Maharashtra governor B.S. Koshyari has approved the withdrawal of the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government’s list of nominees to the state legislative council from the governor’s quota, paving way for the new government under chief minister Eknath Shinde to file new nominations to secure a majority in the upper house.

Raj Bhavan officials confirmed that Koshyari has approved the state government’s decision to withdraw the list.

This list was sent to Raj Bhavan for approval by the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government in 2020 and had been one of the several friction points between the government and Koshyari as he had not approved it for two years.

The list included the names of actor Urmila Matondkar, Vijay Karanjkar, Nitin Bangude-Patil and Chandrakant Raghuvanshi from the Shiv Sena; farmers’ leader Raju Shetti, former minister Eknath Khadse, Yashpal Bhinge and popular singer Anand Shinde from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and Rajni Patil, Sachin Sawant, Anniruddha Vankar and Muzaffar Hussain from the Congress. Of these, Patil is now a Rajya Sabha MP, while Khadse was elected to the council in June. Raghuvanshi has jumped ship from the Shiv Sena to the dissident Shinde faction.

In the 78-member state legislative council, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the largest party with 24 seats, followed by the Shiv Sena (12) and the NCP and Congress with 10 members each. The house has four independents and one member each from the Lok Bharati Party, Peasants and Workers Party of India (PWPI) and the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP). A total of 15 seats, including 12 from the quota to be nominated by the governor, are vacant. The MVA claims the support of smaller parties like the PWPI, Lok Bharati and independents. Appointing their nominees to these 12 seats will ensure that the Shinde government has the upper hand in the council. These nominations will also be crucial in the elections to the chairperson of the state legislative council, which is due soon.