Usual suspects? Congress MLAs who allegedly cross-voted in Maharashtra Council polls in 2022 under scrutiny again

Mumbai: Rattled by cross-voting in the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi went on a crisis-management mode as the ruling Maha Yuti got more votes than it expected.

Some six to seven Congress MLAs have cross-voted and favoured the BJP-led Maha Yuti (NDA) - a development that would attract action from the party high command.

For the MVA (I.N.D.I.A. bloc) which performed well in the Lok Sabha polls, it is time for introspection.

In the Council polls for 11 vacancies, 12 candidates were in fray.

While Maha Yuti won nine seats, the MVA only managed to secure two. Their risk of putting up an additional candidate did not pay off.

Some of the suspects of the July 2024 cross-voting in Council polls are the same as those who had cross-voted in the June 2022 elections to the Upper House.

The results showed that chief minister and Shiv Sena chief leader Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister and NCP president still have a firm hold over their respective parties and BJP’s deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis continues to be the chief strategist of the alliance.

The Left-wing Peasants and Workers Party of India general secretary Jayant Patil, who was backed by Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP), lost the polls.

“I got my twelve votes. The Shiv Sena (UBT) got the (extra) Congress votes. Some of the Congress votes were split. Don't want to talk anymore,” said Patil.

State Congress president Nana Patole indicated that the party has information about who has cross-voted. “We set a trap during the biennial council election and those cross-voted were today trapped,” he said, adding that the high-command has been briefed.

“The party will take action against those who have committed anti-party work and betrayed the party. They will be shown the door,” he said.

Patole recalled the defeat of the Congress nominee Chandrakant Handore during the state council election held in June 2022 due to cross-voting.

“Those who had cross-voted during that election have now come into our trap. Such treacherous people will be thrown out of the party. Stern action will be taken against them so that no one will dare to commit such an act again,” he said.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said that the same set of people who defeated Handore have again done it.

“Though legislators from the Congress cross-voted in the council polls, no one from the Shiv Sena (UBT) or NCP (SP) ditched the opposition camp,” said Raut, a Rajya Sabha member.

"The council poll was a contest between money power and people's power… the“rate” of the MLAs of smaller parties and independents was soaring like a stock market… some legislators were given two acres of land,” he alleged.

"MLAs who think they are secular, who believe in the socialist ideology, there are many like that (who did not vote for the MVA candidate). The rate for MLAs ranged from Rs 20 crore to Rs 25 crore,” he said in what was an attack on certain independents and candidates of small parties.