The Bharat Alliance has suffered a major setback in the Maharashtra Legislative Council elections.
After defeating the NDA in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party has now lost its seat in the Legislative Council (MLC) elections. Despite the numbers game in the Legislative Council elections, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) could not win its seats. In the election, Mahayutti ie NDA won 9 out of 11 seats while MVA had to settle for only two seats. The biggest setback in the election has come from Sharad Pawar’s faction NCP, which despite its support Jayant Patil suffered a crushing defeat.
As for the Maharashtra Legislative Council elections, it is believed that half a dozen Congress MLAs have cross-voted. Jayant Patil, the candidate supported by Sharad Pawar, has to bear the brunt of this. BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis played this game when the Legislative Council elections were held in 2022. Now Ajit Pawar has made drama in 2024 Legislative Council elections. The impact of the game was that the Ajit Pawar group managed to win two seats.
Who won the election?
A total of 12 candidates were in the fray for 11 seats in the Legislative Council elections. Out of them all 5 BJP candidates Pankaja Munde, Parinay Phuke, Amit Gorkhe, Yogesh Tillekar and Sada Bhau Khot won. At the same time, Eknath’s two Shiv Sena candidates Kripal Tumane and Bhavna Gawli won. Shivaji Rao Garje and Rajesh Whitaker, both candidates of the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party, also won the election. Shiv Sena’s UBT’s Milind Narvekar and Congress’s Pragya Satav also won, but Sharad Pawar-backed candidate Jayant Patil lost.
Ahead of the election results, there was confusion over Ajit Pawar’s one seat. It was being said that it would be difficult for him to win both the seats, but Ajit Pawar has won despite not being a numbers game. In such a situation, it is believed that many Congress MLAs cross-voted, which directly benefited Ajit Pawar. It is being discussed that the Congress lost 5-6 votes in the election. Ajit Pawar group had 42 votes, but got 47 votes in the election.
Each candidate needed 23 votes to win.
This time each candidate needed 23 votes to win the Legislative Council elections. Elections were to be held on 11 seats. If we look at Mahayutti’s votes, its 8 candidates will win easily, but the election became interesting when it fielded a 9th candidate. This candidate was fielded by Ajit Pawar group. At the same time, all the three constituent parties of Mahavikas Aghadi fielded one candidate each. MVA had hoped that all three of its candidates would win easily, but Ajit Pawar gave them a big shock.
How did it play? to understand
Only MLAs were to vote in this election of Maharashtra Legislative Council. Currently there are 274 MLAs in the 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. In such a scenario, a candidate needed the votes of 23 MLAs to win the MLC election. NDA had 207 MLAs. In which 103 MLAs of BJP, 40 of NCP and 37 of Shiv Sena are involved. Apart from this, other small parties also had support. Total was 203. According to this the NDA needed the support of 4 additional MLAs to win 9 seats.
Mahavikas Aghadi had 65 MLAs
Similarly, the Indian alliance i.e. Mahavikas Aghadi, Congress, Shiv Sena UBT and Sharad Pawar’s NCP had 65 MLAs. Out of which Congress had 37, UBT had 16 and Sharad Pawar’s NCP had 12 MLAs. Apart from this, 2 were from Samajwadi Party and 2 from Asaduddin Owaisi. If we add all these together, there are 69 MLAs. So the victory of the three MVA candidates was considered certain, but Ajit Pawar played such a game that the opposition was ready to defeat all four.
What did MLA Jeeshan Siddiqui say about cross voting allegations?
On allegations of cross voting, Congress MLA Jeeshan Siddiqui said that I did not vote for anyone else. I have cast my vote as per the slip received from the party. It is heard that there has been a large number of cross-voting in the Congress camp, which is a serious matter. The party should think why this is happening. If the party asks us, I will tell you what I told you.
In the Assembly Parishad elections, there was a trio of Ajit Pawar, Shinde and Fadnavis on one side, while Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray were on the front. Congress had enough numbers, so it was running with overconfidence. It is believed that now half a dozen MLAs of the same Congress have done cross voting. Due to this, the confidence that MVA got in the Lok Sabha elections has suffered a big blow. It is difficult to know who cross-voted because it is a secret ballot.
