By Raju Vernekar
Mumbai, June 11
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) proved its supremacy by winning three out of 06 Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra, with cross-voting despite running short of votes to get its third candidate elected, in the elections held on Friday. The results were announced in the wee hours of Saturday.
In the bargain, the Shiv Sena relying on the votes of its allies and Independent MLAs, lost its second seat by two votes, which was captured by the BJP’s Dhananjay Mahadik who secured 41.56 votes as against Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Pawar securing 39 votes. Ironically in the first round of counting Sanjay Pawar was ahead of Mahadik ( Pawar 33 votes, Mahadik 27).
The Shiv Sena was running short of votes for the second seat while the BJP ran short of votes for its third candidate (Mahadik) and was relying on the votes of its allies. The Shiv Sena fielded Sanjay Pawar while BJP fielded Dhananjay Mahadik- both from Kolhapur. The game plan worked out by BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis paid off and the party could secure the third seat. There were 7 candidates for 06 seats in the fray and this is for the first time in the last many years, the elections were held by voting. By and large, the elections were held unopposed earlier.
Winning candidates from Maharashtra
Shiv Sena: Sanjay Raut (41 votes) (three times Rajya Sabha member and a Shiv Sena spokesman), NCP: Praful Patel (43 votes) (senior NCP leader and former Union Minister), Congress: Mohammad Imran Pratap Garhi (44 votes) (from Uttar Pradesh and the chairman of the Minority Department of the All India Congress Committee), BJP: Piyush Goyal (Union Minister) (48 votes), Dr.Anil Sukhdev Bonde (48 votes) (former Maharashtra Agriculture Minister and now the national general secretary of the BJP’s Kisan Morcha) and Dhananjay Mahadik (41.56 votes) (former NCP MP from Kolhapur and now BJP state spokesperson).
Delay in the counting of votes
Due to the recent demise of Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke(Andheri, Mumbai) and denial of bail by a special court to two NCP MLAs (now in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate) the strength of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly came down to 285.
However, the counting of votes was delayed for over 8 hours on Friday following BJP’s complaint to the Central Election Commission that Minister Jitendra Awhad (NCP), Minister Yashomati Thakur (Congress), and Shiv Sena MLA Suhas Kande, violated the set norms during casting their votes. In turn, Congress pointed out the alleged mistakes committed by BJP MLA Sudhir Mungantiwar and BJP supported Independent MLA Ravi Rana and demanded the cancellation of their votes.
Eventually the CEC, after verifying the video footage, held Kande’s vote as invalid and gave go-ahead for counting the votes. Kande had reportedly shown the ballot paper to two different agents, which violated norms. The results were announced in the wee hours of Saturday.
The strength of the MaharashtraVikas Aghadi (MVA) with allies, headed by the Shiv Sena in the 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly was 158, while the BJP had the strength of 113 with allied parties. Whereas 14 MLAs belonging to smaller parties were more or less neutral. They played a crucial role in the BJP winning the additional seat.
The results of the elections for 16 seats across the country
Out of 57 RS seats from 15 states, the candidates on 41 seats were elected unopposed earlier. The elections were held only for 16 seats. They included: Maharashtra: BJP-03, Shiv Sena-01, NCP-01, Congress-01=06, Karnataka-BJP-03, Congress-01=04, Rajasthan-03 Congress, BJP-01 (BJP supported media baron Subhash Chandra Goyal lost)=04, Haryana-BJP-01, Independent-01 (veteran Congress leader Ajay Makan lost)=02.
The 41 candidates elected unopposed across the country
Uttar Pradesh- BJP-08, Samajwadi Party-01, SP-Rashtriya Lok Dal-01, SP backed Independent (Senior lawyer Kapil Sibbal)-01=11, Bihar-BJP-02, Rashtriya Janata Dal-02, Janata Dal(S)-01=5, Jharkhand-BJP-01, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-01=02, Chhatisgarh-Congress-02=02, Odisha-Biju Janata Dal-03=03, Telangana- Rashtriya Telengana Samiti-02, =02, Tamil Nadu-DMK-3, Congress-01, ADMK-02=06, Andhra Pradesh-YSR Congress-04,=04, Madhya Pradesh-BJP-02, Congress-01=03, Punjab-Aam Admi Party-02=02 and
Uttarakhand-BJP-01=01,
The BJP’s strength in the Upper House will now be 95 (including the independents). On June 3, the party added 14 members to its tally when 41 nominees across parties were elected to the Upper House unopposed.
