At least seven Congress MLAs crossed-voted for candidates from the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Friday’s Legislative Council votes, which is concerning for the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra, which was riding high after capturing 30 of the state’s 48 Lok Sabha seats, according to sources.
Because 12 candidates were running for 11 seats, the polls, which are usually an easy process, were considered as the semi-finals ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections, which are anticipated to take place in November.
The opposition alliance had forced the election by fielding one more candidate than it had the numbers to elect, possibly hoping to benefit from cross-voting by MLAs from the ruling coalition, but seems to have ended up losing votes instead.
The Maharashtra Assembly has a strength of 288 MLAs but currently has 274 sitting legislators. This meant that each MLC candidate needed 23 first-preference votes to win.
The Mahayuti – part of the larger NDA alliance – which consists of the BJP, the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar wing of the NCP, fielded nine candidates and had 201 MLAs, including Independents and smaller parties, backing it.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi, which is under the INDIA umbrella, has the Congress, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) as its key constituents and had put up three candidates despite having the support of only 67 MLAs.
Six MLAs, including an independent, were neutral.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) was hoping that it would get some votes from the Mahayuti, especially amid the buzz of some leaders from the Ajit Pawar NCP group being in touch with the Sharad Pawar faction.
The candidate backed by the Sharad Pawar faction, Jayant Patil of the Peasants and Workers Party, however, lost because he did not get enough votes. The Congress candidate and the Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate sailed through, as did five from the BJP and two each from the Shinde Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP.
Sources said the Congress, which has 37 MLAs, had fixed a quota of 30 first-preference votes for its candidate Pradyna Satav, and seven remaining votes were to go to Milind Narvekar of the Shiv Sena UBT.
Mr Satav got 25 first preference votes and Mr Narvekar got 22, which means at least seven Congress MLAs cross-voted, they added.
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