Rajya Sabha polls: In setback to Shiv Sena, BJP wins three seats in Maharashtra

The Sena, which had fielded two candidates, managed to get Sanjay Raut elected. Its second candidate Sanjay Pawar lost.

The election for the six Rajya Sabha seats was held on Friday. The Congress’ lone candidate Imran Pratapgadi won, overriding unrest within the party. Senior NCP leader and former Union minister Praful Patel emerged a winner as well.

The highlight of the Rajya Sabha poll was the bitter battle between Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Pawar and BJP’s Dhananjay Mhadik for the sixth seat. At the end of the second round of counting of votes, Mhadik pulled off a victory with 41 votes. Pawar got 33 votes.

Goyal and Bonde, both BJP candidates, got the highest votes at 48 each. The NCP’s Praful Patel got 43 votes, Congress’s Imran Pratapgadi got 44 votes, and Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut managed 41 votes.

Of the total 288 members in the state legislative Assembly, 285 voted in the Rajya Sabha election on Friday. Two NCP members — cabinet minister Nawab Malik and former home minister Anil Deshmukh – who are in judicial custody facing trial in two separate cases of money laundering, were disallowed by the court to cast their votes.

A Shiv Sena MLA, Ramesh Lake, passed away last month.

The vote of another Shiv Sena MLA, Suhas Kande, was declared invalid.

The polling which was completed at 3.30 pm, was stopped following objections by both the MVA and BJP, accusing five members for flouting the code of conduct. The matter was referred to the Election Commission of India, which, after seeing the recorded videos, declared only one member’s vote – Suhas Kande – to be treated as invalid. The counting of votes resumed after nine hours.

Overjoyed by the election results, the BJP said the success of its elected members was due to the trust in their leaders and the party organisation.

Opposition leader and former CM Devendra Fadnavis, who was the brain behind the master strategy to field three candidates, said, “The surplus votes which BJP candidates received has exposed the Maha Vikas Aghadi government’s claim that it had the support of 170 members in the state Assembly. Somewhere, it also shows that smaller parties/Independents are not happy with MVA.”

Interestingly, Sena’s first official candidate Sanjay Raut received less votes (41) than BJP’s third candidate Dhananjay Mhadik (41.56).

According to Fadnavis, “Even if the court had allowed Malik and Deshmukh to vote or held Suhas Kande’s vote has valid, it would not have made any impact on the electoral outcome of BJP.” The BJP received surplus votes from MVA’s allies despite open voting.

Meanwhile, senior Congress minister Balasaheb Thorat said, “We are happy as our party candidate Imran Pratapgadi won with good votes. But we are unhappy as Shiv Sena lost one candidate.” The Minister for Revenue added, “We will have to analyse where we failed in drawing strategies as compared to the BJP.”

Speaking to the media, Praful Patel said, “I will use this opportunity given by my party to voice the concerns of the people and welfare of Maharashtra in Rajya Sabha.”

MVA leaders also slammed the BJP for adopting unfair practices in polling. Sena’s Sanjay Raut said, “The BJP played foul. They did not allow two NCP members held in judicial custody to vote. A Sena member’s vote was also made invalid.”