Another MVA vs BJP battle on the cards, this time for Legislative Council polls

On the last day of withdrawal of nominations, Sadabhau Khot, who heads the Rayat Krantikari Sanghatana, pulled out of the race. NCP's additional candidate Shivajirao Garje also dropped out.

Written by Manoj Dattatrye More

Pune | June 14, 2022 05:07 AM IST

4 min read

(From left) BJP leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia, Piyush Goyal, Devendra Fadnavis, Chandrakant Patil and Dhananjay Mahadik on Saturday. (Express Photo: Pradip Das)

AS 11 candidates remained in the fray for 10 seats on the last day of withdrawal of nominations for the state Legislative Council elections, the ruling MVA and opposition BJP are all set for another electoral battle, days after contentious Rajya Sabha elections in which BJP emerged as the winner.
The state Legislative Council polls are scheduled for June 20.

On the last day of withdrawal of nominations, Sadabhau Khot, who heads the Rayat Krantikari Sanghatana, pulled out of the race. NCP’s additional candidate Shivajirao Garje also dropped out.

While MVA has fielded six candidates, the BJP has nominated five candidates. To get elected to the Legislative council, each candidate will need 27 votes. With 106 MLAs, four BJP candidates are expected to have a cake-walk as five independent MLAs have already aligned with it.

On the MVA side, the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress have each fielded two candidates. While the NCP and Sena have the numbers to get two candidates elected, the Congress, with 44 MLAs, has numbers to get only one candidate elected.

It will have to fight it out for votes from Independent legislators and MLAs of smaller parties to get the second candidate elected.

While in the Rajya Sabha election, it was a battle between Shiv Sena and BJP, for the 10th Legislative Council seat, it will be a fight between BJP and the Congress. During the Rajya Sabha elections, the MVA had suffered a setback as some Independents and MLAs of smaller parties, whom it was counting on, voted for the BJP candidate. Dhananjay Mahadik of the BJP had beaten Sanjay Pawar of the Shiv Sena.

BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis said,”We tried to ensure unopposed election to the Legislative Council. There was discussion about Congress with drawing one of its candidates, but it refused to do so. The MVA is riven with internal contradictions and there is unrest and lack of coordination, which was reflected during the Rajya Sabha polls. The level to which the unrest has risen in MVA will be known during the Legislative Council polls.”

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On the other hand, Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat said, “The MVA has learnt its lessons from the Rajya Sabha elections and we have tried to find out the reasons for the defeat. We have taken correctives measures and are confident. Independents and small parties’ MLAs will back our candidates. Both Congress candidates will win.”

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut said he had no intention of “insulting” Independent MLAs.

Raut had alleged that at least six Independent MLAs had succumbed to the monetary bait of BJP which had allegedly indulged in horse-trading during the Rajya Sabha election. “I had not made any direct allegations against Independent MLAs. I had said that the BJP put them under pressure by threatening ED probe…,” he said.
Some Independent MLAs had also complained to NCP chief Sharad Pawar about Raut’s remarks against them.

For the Legislative Council polls, the Shiv Sena has fielded Sachin Ahir and Amasha Padvi. NCP has nominated Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar and Eknath Khadse.
The Congress has fielded Bhai Jagtap, who is Mumbai Congress president, and Chandrakant Handore.

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BJP has fielded Pravin Darekar, who is opposition leader in the state Legislative Council, prof Ram Shinde, Shrikant Bharatiya, Uma Khapre, who is the party’s state women’s Wing chief, and Prasad Lad.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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