Will repeat success in assembly polls, says Mahayuti as Cong mulls action on rebel MLAs
tate Congress president Nana Patole said the party would take strict action against the rebel MLAs and expel those who voted against the party diktat
Mumbai: The ruling Mahayuti alliance received a major boost on Friday as all its nine candidates in the legislative council election registered wins. At least seven Congress MLAs appear to have cross-voted, resulting in the MVA’s second candidate Milind Narvekar winning based on second preference votes. State Congress president Nana Patole said the party would take strict action against the rebel MLAs and expel those who voted against the party diktat.
“When we decided to field nine candidates, the opposition said our candidates would be defeated. We have, however, won all nine seats. All the winners are from humble backgrounds and work amongst people. I am sure we will replicate the success in the ensuing assembly polls,” said deputy chief minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis.
“It is the victory of our unity and united strategy. We will win the assembly polls with the same forte,” said deputy chief minister and NCP chief Ajit Pawar.
“It was a strategic move to get our fifth candidate Sadabhau Khot elected on the basis of second preference votes by ensuring there was no cross-voting by ruling party MLAs. Bahujan Vikas Aghadi’s three MLAs voted for us. Shyamsundar Shinde of PWP also voted for us,” said a BJP leader. Significantly, Jayant Patil who lost the election belonged to the PWP.
The bienniel election to 11 seats of the legislative council was held at Vidhan Bhavan on Friday. The ruling Mahayuti alliance comprising BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP had fielded nine candidates while the MVA combine comprising Congress, NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT) had fielded three candidates. The ruling alliance has a strength of over 207 in the assembly, whose emebers elect council members, while the opposition has 67 MLAs.
For the 11 seats for which polling was held on Friday, Mahayuti and MVA had fielded nine and three candidates, respectively. The ruling alliance managed to get 214 votes while the MVA could get only 59 votes for its three candidates.
Congress had set a target of 30 votes for its candidate Pradnya Satav, but only 25 MLAs voted for her as first preference. Though the party had passed on its additional seven votes to Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Narvekar, only five of them voted for him. “Four MLAs who are close to Ashok Chavan may have defied the party diktat,” said a Congress leader.
State Congress president Nana Patole said, “We are aware of the MLAs who may have cross-voted. In fact, we had laid a trap to identify them. I have sent a report to the party high command and action to expel them will be taken soon.”
Narvekar, who shares cordial relations with Eknath Shinde, reprtedly secured support from the Congress and a couple of MLAs from the Shinde-led Sena.
“His entry was an alarming bell for PWP’s Jayant Patil, as Shiv Sena (UBT) was unhappy with the latter for his non-cooperation in the Konkan during the Lok Sabha poll and later, during the council election for the teachers’ constituency last month. Though Patil was an MVA candidate, Shiv Sena (UBT) was against his candidature,” said a Congress leader.
The Sharad Pawar-led NCP had extended its support to Patil, but he could not garner support from other parties or independents apart from the 12 NCP (SP) MLAs.
Shiv Sena spokesperson Naresh Mhaske said the results had exposed crack within the MVA. “Jayant Patil’s defeat is Sharad Pawar’s defeat. Some Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress MLAs did not vote for their candidates. Milind Narvekar should have got 26 votes, but he got less. He won because of his own relations with others, not due to Uddhav Thackeray,” said Mhaske.
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