Congress keen to contest two Maharashtra Legislative Council seats

MAKING THE RACE for elections to ten seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council in June more interesting, Congress Tuesday stated that it wants to contest two seats. The decision will pit the party against estranged ally NCP. Given their numerical strength in the Assembly, the Congress and the NCP can collectively win three out of ten seats.

With the current terms of council chairman Ramraje Nimbalkar and Opposition leader Dhananjay Munde coming to an end, the NCP had approached the Congress with a proposal to let it contest two seats. But the Congress legislators voted against the proposal on Tuesday, while leaving it for the party high command to take a final call.

Meanwhile, Union Minister Piyush Goyal filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha Tuesday. The BJP has retained Goyal’s nomination from Maharashtra.