Maharashtra Legislative Council elections: Council poll victory a trailer, says CM Shinde

CM Eknath Shinde. File Pic

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Friday said that the victory of all nine Mahayuti (ruling alliance) candidates in the Legislative Council polls was a trailer ahead of the state assembly polls later this year, reported the PTI.

Talking to reporters, CM Eknath Shinde said that a false narrative was set by the opposition in the Lok Sabha elections 2024 and people were misled.

IN PHOTOS: MLAs at Vidhan Bhavan in Mumbai during Maharashtra Legislative Council elections

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"Mahayuti has registered a big win. This is a good start. A false narrative (that the Constitution will be changed by the BJP) was set. People were misled. Mahayuti's victory (in the legislative council polls) is a trailer," he said, according to the PTI.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the opposition was claiming a candidate of the ruling alliance would lose but the results showed the Mahayuti got votes of not just its constituents but even from Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) legislators, as per the PTI.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won five seats, while Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) bagged two each, giving the ruling alliance wins on nine of the 11 seats for which polls were held earlier in the day.

From the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), Milind Narvekar, a close aide of Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, and Congress candidate Pradnya Satav won. However, Peasants and Workers' Party (PWP) candidate Jayant Patil, who was supported by Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP), lost the polls.

Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said he, Fadnavis and Shinde held multiple meetings to ensure better coordination and responsibilities were shared, which led to the victory of Mahayuti candidates.

He said the Mahayuti will work unitedly to ensure victory of the alliance in assembly polls.

The NCP fielded Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar and both won despite the Ajit Pawar-led party falling short of votes.

"We (NCP) had 42 votes but MLAs gave more votes to Vitekar and Garje. There were rumours there will be a split (in the NCP and some of its MLAs could cross vote)," Pawar said.

The election was necessitated as 11 members of the legislative council (MLCs) are completing their six-year term on July 27.

The 288-member legislative assembly was the electoral college for the polls and its current strength is 274.

Each winning candidate required a quota of 23 first-preference votes.

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

The BJP fielded former Maharashtra minister Pankaja Munde, Yogesh Tilekar, Parinay Phuke, Amit Gorkhe and Sadabhau Khot. The Shiv Sena candidates were former Lok Sabha MPs Krupal Tumane and Bhavana Gawali, while the NCP had given tickets to Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar, the news agency reported on Friday.

The opposition Congress nominated Satav for another term, while Sena (UBT) had fielded Narvekar.

The third MVA constituent, NCP (SP), did not field a candidate and instead extended support to PWP's Jayant Patil.

(witn PTI inputs)