In a major jolt to the tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Government in Maharashtra, the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won both the Council seats for which the election was held on December 10. One of the seats was earlier held by the Shiv Sena. With this victory, the BJP has won four of the six Council seats while the rest of the seats were already declared unopposed.
“This victory has busted the myth that the MVA can win any election if all three parties contested unitedly,” said former Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition Devendra Fadnavis. Of the six, one seat each went to the Sena and the Congress.
The term of eight sitting MLCs is set to expire in January. However, with regard to the local authorities’ constituencies election, the ECI’s guidelines say if at least 75% of them in the constituency are functioning and in addition at least 75% of the electorate are available, then the electorate is treated as available for electing MLC. Only five of the local authorities fulfil the criteria leading to election to only six seats instead of eight.
State’s former Energy Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule defeated Congress candidate Mangesh Deshmukh in Nagpur seat by securing 362 votes against the latter’s 186. Mr. Deshmukh, who had earlier filed the nomination as an independent, was supported by the Congress after its candidate Ravindra Bhoyar expressed inability to contest.
The big blow to the Sena came in the form of the defeat of three-term MLC Gopikishan Bajoriya from Akola-Washim-Buldhana seat by BJP’s Vasant Khandelwal who won 443 votes against Sena candidate’s 334 votes.
After his victory, Mr. Bawankule slammed Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole saying the latter’s party got into horse-trading of voters in the last two days. “These Congress leaders are behaving in an autocratic manner. He [Mr. Patole] does not have the right to remain in his post,” he said.
Two seats in the Brihanmumbai Muncipal Corproation (BMC) had gone unopposed with Sunil Shinde of the Sena and Rajhans Singh of the BJP wining them respectively. The Kolhapur and Nandurbar-Dhule seats were won by Satej alias Bunty Patil of the Congress and Ambrish Patel of the BJP unopposed.
