Mumbai, December 19: Voting for vacant Maharashtra Legislative Council seats from local self-government bodies concluded here on Friday. Voting was held for eight out of the nine seats as Congress nominee Amrish Patel had no rival in Dhule-Nandurbar local body constituency.
Counting will be done on December 21.
For the two seats from Mumbai, which saw a triangular fight, the Shiv Sena and the Congress seem better placed than the BJP, with the Sena, which has 86 corporators, the highest in the civic body, not casting its second preference votes for ally BJP. Sena corporator Ravindra Waikar said, “We only marked the first preference votes for the Sena candidate.”
The Shiv Sena had nominated former Leader of the Opposition Ramdas Kadam, who lost the Assembly elections from Guhagar, while the BJP had fielded incumbent MLC Madhu Chavan. The Congress candidate was trade union leader Bhai Jagtap, who was defeated in the Assembly polls from Jogeshwari.
The Samajwadi Party and the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) decided to support the Congress candidate further strengthening the party.
A total of 224 corporators voted through secret ballot. For victory, a candidate requires a quota of 76 votes.
“By not voting for the BJP candidate, the Sena has indirectly helped the Congress,” said BJP group leader in the BMC, Ashish Shelar. He, however, said the party was not upset with the Sena.
The BJP, which has only 29 votes, is confident of Chavan’s victory. “We appealed to other 110 corporators, apart from the Sena’s to give second preference to Chavan and are confident of winning,” Shelar said.
The Congress is looking at sailing through with the support of Samajwadi Party (7) and MNS (6), both of which had not cooperated with the Congress during the recent BMC mayoral elections citing ideological differences.
SP leader and MLA Abu Azmi had said just before Friday’s polling, “We will support the Congress candidate with a very heavy heart.”
The MNS apparently decided to support the Congress as it was looking at ways to get four of its suspended MLAs back into the Assembly. They had been suspended for four years for assaulting Azmi for taking oath in Hindi. The MNS had abstained during the mayoral elections.
The Congress-NCP combine has 96 corporators.
Elections were also held on Friday for one seat each in Solapur, Kolhapur, Ahmednagar, Nagpur and Akola-Washim-Buldhana. By-poll to Nashik graduates constituency was held as sitting MLC of BJP Pratap Sonawane has been elected to the Lok Sabha.
——Agencies