NDA has shown a great performance in the Legislative Council elections in Maharashtra. In this election, the Mahavikas Aghadi has defeated a candidate supported by the NCP Sharad Pawar faction. The opposition alliance could not keep its MLAs united. It is believed that 6-7 Congress MLAs have cross-voted. The NDA-led Mahayuti alliance has won all nine out of 11 seats. All nine candidates of the Mahayuti alliance, including BJP’s Pankaja Munde, won the elections.
Milind Narvekar of Shiv Sena (UBT) and Pragya Satav from Congress from the MVA alliance won the elections while Jayant Patil of Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), supported by Nationalist Congress Party (SP), lost the elections.
It is noteworthy that 12 candidates were in the fray for 11 Legislative Council seats, due to which the need for election arose. Only Jayant Patil had to bear the brunt of this defeat.
Shinde made a dent in Congress
According to the India Today report, looking at the vote figures that have come out so far, it is being estimated that seven votes of Congress have been divided. Congress has a total of 37 MLAs. Out of these, 25 MLAs gave their first preference votes to Pragya Satav. Congress had 12 extra first preference votes. Milind Narvekar got 22 first preference votes, while Uddhav Sena has only 15 members. Even if Congress adds the remaining seven votes, the question of five votes remains a mystery. At the same time, Jayant Patil got 12 first preference votes, who were from the NCP (SP) faction.
Eight candidates won the election by getting first preference votes. The rest of the candidates had to depend on second preference votes. At least 23 first preference votes were needed to win.
The votes polled by the candidates are as follows-
B J P
Pankaja Munde – 26 (Winner)
Parinay Phuke – 26 (Winner)
Amit Gorkhe – 26 (Winner)
Yogesh Tilekar – 26 (Winner)
Sadabhau Khot – 14 (won in second round)
NCP (Ajit Pawar)
Shivaji Rao Garje – 24 (Winner)
Rajesh Witekar – 23 (Winner)
Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde)
Kripal Tumane – 24 (Winner)
Bhavana Gawli – 24 (Winner)
Congress
Pragya Satav – 25 (won)
Shiv Sena (UBT)
Milind Narvekar – 22 (won in second round)
PWP
Jayant Patil – 12 (loser)
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena won the final phase despite fielding its close aide Milind Narvekar and having a reduced number of MLAs. The five BJP candidates who won the election include two OBC candidates, a Dalit candidate, a Maratha candidate and Pankaja Munde, who recently lost the Lok Sabha election from Beed.
Shinde corrected the mistake
Eknath Shinde corrected the mistake of not giving a chance to two sitting MLAs in the Lok Sabha and fielded Bhavana Gawali and Kripal Tumhane who were elected to the Legislative Council. Though Jayant Patil had the support of Sharad Pawar’s NCP, other MVA allies did not support him. Resulting in his defeat.
Congress MLAs gave 25 votes to Pragya Satav and about six or seven votes to Narvekar. But even then, there is a possibility that about seven MLAs have cross-voted.
Ajit Pawar is also strong
One thing that has emerged from this result is that the MLAs who went with Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar are still with them even after the results of the Lok Sabha elections. This also gives a political message that the factions of Shinde and Ajit Pawar are still strong.
Even though Congress has won the maximum number of seats in Lok Sabha in Maharashtra, these results also show that they do not have complete control over their MLAs. If there is cross voting from the Congress side once again, then the state leadership will still have to think before the assembly elections.
