The Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party dealt another blow to the Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra, bagging five legislative council seats. The ruling coalition allies Nationalist Congress Party and the Shiv Sena won two each, while the Congress bagged one seat and lost another to the BJP, an official said on Monday night.
All the eight candidates secured the minimum quota of 26 votes each to make it to the upper house of the state legislature, the official added.
Chairman of the legislative council and NCP candidate Ramraje Nimbalkar, leader of opposition in the upper house Pravin Darekar of the BJP and former BJP minister and now NCP nominee Eknath Khadse easily bagged the sufficient number of first preference votes to post wins.
The final vote tally will be announced when all the rounds of counting are over, the official said.
Both the candidates of the Shiv Sena — Sachin Ahir and Aamshya Padavi — also won the election, while the two nominees of the Congress, which is part of the ruling coalition MVA, failed to secure the minimum quota of the first preference vote. However, Bhai Jagtap won when the second preference votes were counted.
The BJP had fielded five candidates — Darekar, Ram Shinde, Uma Khapre, Shrikant Bharatiya and Prasad Lad — of which the first four have already bagged the minimum quota of votes required to win the poll. Prasad Lad won in the second preference votes.
Atul Bhatkhalkar, an MLA of the BJP, said, “Darekar secured 29 votes of first preference, while Ram Shinde and Bharatiya secured 30 votes of first preference each. It means, our excess votes of top three candidates on the list will be transferred to our fifth candidate Prasad Lad.”
“If you count all the votes of first preference to the BJP candidates, we have won 133 votes. It means, we have won more votes than we secured in the Rajya Sabha elections (held on June 10),” he said.
The BJP has 106 MLAs in the Maharashtra legislative assembly, while remaining votes for its candidates have either come from independent MLAs, or those from small parties or from other parties.
Voting for the elections to 10 vacant MLC seats was held between 9 am and 4 pm at the Legislature Complex in south Mumbai. In all, 11 candidates — five of the BJP and two each of the Sena, the NCP and the Congress — were in the fray.
The counting of votes began after a two-hour delay at around 7 pm.
