Polling ends for Maharashtra council elections; all 274 MLAs cast their votes

Mumbai: Amid threat of cross-voting, polling for the biennial elections to 11 seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Council concluded at the Vidhan Bhavan Complex on Friday afternoon.

Voting was held between 9 am and 4 pm, officials said. The votes will be taken up for counting after 5 pm and the results are expected in the evening, they said.

There are 12 candidates in the fray for the 11 seats in the upper house of the state legislature where the 274 current members of the legislative assembly form the electoral college.

According to officials, all the 274 MLAs cast their votes. Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Gaikwad was the first to cast his vote through the secret ballot system.

The biennial elections are being held to fill in vacancies of members whose term ends on July 27. Each winning candidate would need a quota of 23 first-preference votes.

In the morning, the Shiv Sena (UBT) said it would request the state electoral officer to extend the voting timing by an hour due to heavy rains in Mumbai.

As voting progressed, the Congress wrote to the returning officer, urging that BJP MLA Ganpat Gaikwad not be allowed to cast his vote.

Gaikwad, who represents the Kalyan East assembly constituency, was arrested in February for allegedly opening fire on a Shiv Sena functionary inside a police station at Ulhasnagar in Thane district over a land dispute.

The Congress said since Gaikwad is in judicial custody, he cannot vote under Section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said allowing the BJP lawmaker to vote in the council polls would amount to misuse of power.

“Gaikwad can come out from jail to vote, but Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik were also in jail (during the 2022 council polls) and were not allowed to vote. This is use or misuse of power,” he said.

The BJP is the largest party in the assembly with 103 members, followed by the Shiv Sena (38), NCP (42), Congress (37), Shiv Sena (UBT) 15 and NCP (SP) 10.

The BJP has fielded five candidates and its ally Shiv Sena two. Their Mahayuti partner NCP has nominated two candidates.

From the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) bloc, the Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress have fielded one candidate each, while the NCP (SP) is backing the PWP nominee Jayant Patil.

The MVA does not have numbers on its side to get the third candidate elected, but it is banking on some MLAs of the NCP and the Shiv Sena to cross-vote in their favour.

Over the last few days, the NCP (SP) has claimed that some MLAs of the rival camp led by Ajit Pawar are in touch with the opposition party for a possible return after MVA’s impressive performance in the Lok Sabha polls.