Maharashtra: NCP legislator claims Eknath Shinde’s revolt pre-planned, made moves during Rajya Sabha and MLC polls

The results of the council elections revealed that the cross-voting was pre-planned as none of the legislators had showed any signs of rebelling against the party, he added.

Going by the strategy of the Congress, 29 of its supporting legislators were asked to give first preference to their candidate Chandrakant Handore while 19 were asked to vote for Bhai Jagtap but Handore got 22 votes and Jagtap got 19 votes in the first round. This showed there were seven legislators of the Congress who participated in cross-voting and Handore lost the election in the second round of counting of votes, the NCP legislator said.

Similarly, there were 12 legislators from Shiv Sena camp who voted for the BJP candidate instead of alliance candidates as decided by the party leadership.

Earlier, the Sena candidate lost the Rajya Sabha election and the blame was put on independent legislators for not sticking to their promise, the NCP leader said. “If the Rajya Sabha election results are studied in present situation then it is clear that it were not the Independent legislators but the Shiv Sena legislators who had led to loss of party candidate Sanjay Pawar in Rajya Sabha elections,” he added.