Independents help BJP edge out MVA for 6th seat in Maha

MUMBAI: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Dhananjay Mahadik won the sixth Rajya Sabha seat in Maharashtra after a second round of counting of votes that commenced in the early hours of June 11. Shiv Sena legislator Sanjay Pawar, who was contesting him for the seat, lost.

There were seven candidates in the fray for six Rajya Sabha seats with the BJP fielding Union minister Piyush Goyal, former minister Anil Bonde and Mahadik, a former MP. The ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition fielded parliamentarian Sanjay Raut and Sanjay Pawar (both from Shiv Sena), former Union minister Praful Patel (NCP) and Imran Pratapgarhi (Congress).

Five winning candidates were declared in the first round of counting: Praful Patel, Sanjay Raut, Imran Pratapgarhi, Bonde and Goyal. Goyal and Bonde of the BJP received 48 votes each while Pratapgarhi of the Congress won 44. Praful Patel of the NCP won 43 votes and Sanjay Raut won 41.

The counting of votes was held up on Friday after the BJP and the MVA traded allegations about the conduct of certain MLAs of each camp soon after all 285 legislators cast their votes to indicate their preferred candidate on Friday.

The ECI took note of the objections raised by a delegation of BJP leaders and a letter signed by politicians from all three of MVA’s constituents — the Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP.

The voting conduct of five legislators — Jitendra Awhad (Nationalist Congress Party), Yashomati Thakur (Indian National Congress), Suhas Kande (Shiv Sena), and BJP’s Sudhir Mungantiwar and independent MLA Ravi Rana — was called into question.

The counting of votes was held up for several hours and did not commence till well after midnight. Eventually, the vote cast by Shiv Sena’s Suhas Kande was disqualified by the ECI, which reviewed video footage of all five MLAs casting their vote. The MVA has 150 members. It needed at least 14 more votes to win its fourth seat. The BJP has 106 MLAs, and needed 17 more to win third seat.

Based on the strength in the assembly, the BJP could easily win two seats, while the Sena, NCP and Congress could win one each. The contest was on for the sixth seat. For it, the votes of 29 MLAs were crucial. After the second round of counting, Dhananjay Mahadik of BJP received 41 votes while the second preference votes of Sanjay Pawar were not counted as Mahadik reached the quota to win the sixth seat.