Talks fail; MVA and BJP to put 6 RS seats to vote
MUMBAI: As the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could not find the middle ground after a meeting on Friday, the six Rajya Sabha seats from the state are set to be put to a vote. While the three ruling parties – Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and Congress - have fielded four candidates, BJP has put up three candidates for the RS elections slated to be held on June 10. An MVA delegation led by NCP leader and food and civil supplies minister Chhagan Bhujbal met leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis at his official bungalow in the presence of Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrakant Patil on Friday morning to request the prime opposition party to avoid elections. The ruling alliance offered to help BJP in the legislative council election if it withdrew its third candidate. However, BJP gave the MVA a counter offer, asking it to withdraw Sena candidate Sanjay Pawar on the promise of fielding one candidate less in the council poll. Election to 10 council seats will be conducted on June 20.
Sena MP Anil Desai and Congress leader and dairy development minister Sunil Kedar also attended the meeting.
“Following the tradition in the state, we tried to convince the opposition to withdraw their third nominee as it would help get the candidates elected unopposed. We have adequate votes to win four seats, and it would have been in the interest of BJP to pull its third candidate out of the race. We also offered to help them win an additional seat in the council elections,” Bhujbal said after the meeting.
Congress leader and revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat said the MVA had sufficient number of votes to elect the four candidates. “I do not think our candidates will have any problem winning the seats. All the independents and the smaller parties’ MLAS are with us and we have shared a very cordial relationship with them in the last two-and-a-half years of the government.”
Alleging that BJP was spending crores of rupees on horsetrading, Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said the Enforcement Directorate must investigate this alleged “money laundering”. Raut, who is also a candidate, claimed that “forcing elections unnecessarily” was part of “the opposition’s design to create instability in Maharashtra”.
Patil said both sides were ready to give up an additional council seat in lieu of one RS seat. “The MVA wanted us to withdraw our third candidate and assured us that they would not field their sixth candidate in the council polls. We offered them to not field our fifth candidate in the council polls if their fourth candidate exited the RS race,” he said. Fadnavis said the MVA should have withdrawn its candidate if it feared horse-trading. “We have more numbers as a party than Sena. It is they who have started horse-trading,” he told reporters in Panvel.