Elections to 11 seats of MLC on July 12; counting same day

The election is necessitated as the term of office of 11 members of the Maharashtra Legislative Council elected by the Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) is due to expire on their retirement on July 27.

Out of the 11 MLCs retiring on July 27, four belong to BJP, two to Congress while NCP, Shiv Sena, Sena UBT, Peasants and Workers Party and Rashtriya Samaj Party have one MLC each.

The election of these 11 MLCs is held through a secret ballot from the MLAs.

With the strength of the Assembly reduced to 274 from 288 — for reasons such as MLAs getting elected to Lok Sabha, death and suspension — the ruling coalition will be on its toes to keep its MLAs together.

In the event of voting, if more than 11 nominations are filed, the MLCs will get elected through a preferential voting system.

The winning candidate would require 23 votes of first preference to get elected.

Based on the strength of each party, the ruling alliance may win nine seats while the opposition looks comfortable in securing two seats.

The sitting MLCs Manisha Kayande (Shiv Sena),Vijay Girkar (BJP), Abdullah Khan A Durrani (NCP), Nilay Naik (BJP), Anil Parab (Sena UBT), Ramesh Patil (BJP), Ramrao Patil (BJP), Dr. Wajahat Mirza (Congress), Pradnya Sarav (Congress), Mahadev Jankar (RSP) and Jayant Patil (PWP) are retiring on July 27.

While the last day of filing the nominations is July 2, after the scrutiny of nominations on July 3 , the candidates will have time until July 5 to withdraw their nomination.