Biennial elections for 11 Maharashtra Legislative Council seats on July 12: Election Commission

The 6-year term in office of 11 MLCs, elected by the Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs), is due to end on July 27 on their retirement

The biennial elections for 11 seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council will take place on July 12, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced on Tuesday, reported the PTI.

The 6-year term in office of 11 MLCs, elected by the Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs), is due to end on July 27 on their retirement.

The election to fill this vacancy will be notified on June 25 and this will be followed by submission of nominations by candidates.

According to the PTI, the last date of filing nominations is July 2 and their scrutiny will take place the next day, said an EC notification.

The last date for withdrawal of nominations is July 5. If required, polling will be held on July 12 between 9 am and 4 pm, and counting of votes will start at 5 pm the same day, according to the notification, as per the PTI.

The biennial election to the upper house of the state legislature is being held just months ahead of assembly polls which are due in October.

This will be the first Council election in Maharashtra where MLAs will be voting after the vertical split in the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

The Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde claims to have the support of 39 MLAs, while the NCP headed by deputy CM Ajit Pawar claims to have 41 members of the lower house on its side in the 288-strong assembly.

Eleven MLAs are with the NCP faction headed by former Union minister Sharad Pawar.

The BJP, the single largest party in the assembly, has 104 MLAs.

In the just concluded Lok Sabha elections 2024, in Maharashtra, which has 48 Lok Sabha seats, the Congress led with 13 wins, followed by nine for the Shiv Sena (UBT) and eight for the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP).

On the other hand, the BJP's tally in the state came down from 23 in the 2019 general elections to nine this time, while the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar's NCP had to be contend with seven and one wins, respectively

(with PTI inputs)

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