The Maharashtra council polls for 10 seats resulted in a nail-biting finish with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yet again trumping over tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) - after the Rajya Sabha polls - by winning five out of ten seats. In what could be an alarming situation for the State government, three MLAs each from Congress and Shiv Sena cross-voted in a secret ballot held on Monday.
The BJP did not miss the opportunity to warn that the results will ensure the beginning of a change and we will not stop until we bringing a people-friendly government in the State.
The BJP did not only win five seats but managed to win 134 votes of MLAs – an increase of 10 votes - by snatching almost 21 votes more than its actual strength on 113 in the assembly. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) which has a strength of 53, won 57 votes of first preference, ensuring support of independents to the party.
This is the second victory of the BJP – led by former Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in 10 days, with first being in the Rajya Sabha where the party managed to win three seats. Jubilant State BJP chief Chandrakant Patil, along with other party leaders said that it was Mr. Fadnavis’ strategy that helped the party to win five seats. “We won in Rajya Sabha with 123 votes and now we have got 134 votes. I have been telling from day one that MVA MLAs do not trust this government and they will go by their conscience and will vote for us,” he said.
Mr. Fadnavis said that the BJP’s fifth candidate had zero votes to start with, but we ended up winning more votes than the Congress candidate. “Discontent against this government is out now. We will continue our struggle and we will only stop when we bring a people-friendly government. This is the beginning of change,” he said.
The list of victors included BJP’s Pravin Darekar, Shrikant Bharatiya, Uma Khapre, Ram Shinde and Prasad Lad. NCP’s Eknath Khadse, Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar; Shiv Sena’s Sachin Ahir and Amshya Padvi and Congress’ Bhai Jagtap. What could be termed as one of the blunders in terms of strategy, Congress despite having 44 votes could not ensure victory of its candidate in the first round as Mr. Handore and Mr. Jagtap won only 22 and 19 votes, respectively. Mr. Jagtap won in the second round while party’s second candidate Chandrakant Handore lost the battle in the second round.
BJP’s Bharatiya and Shinde winning the highest 30 first preference votes ensured that their second preference votes counted first helping Mr. Lad to achieve a quota of 26 votes, surpassing the Congress candidates.
No one can be blamed if we could not get votes of our MLAs, says Thorat
Congress legislative party leader Balasaheb Thorat said that he accepts that the party made mistakes and it was time to introspect. “We could not keep our flock together and we are not interested in blaming others. It is our fault and we need to seriously think over it,” said Mr Thorat.
The counting of polls was delayed by four hours following a number of objections raised by the MVA and BJP. Initially, Congress raised an objection on two ailing BJP MLAs namely Mukta Tilak and Laxman Jagtap using an assistant to cast votes. BJP leader Girish Mahajan claimed that the party had taken prior permission for the same from the State Election Commission. The complaint from Congress was rejected by the first State Election Commission and later by Central Election Commission.
Later, while verifying the casted votes, BJP objected an MVA vote claiming the preference was overwritten. Moments later, MVA objected the BJP vote. Both these votes were considered invalid by returning officer and instead of 285 only 283 votes were decided to be counted. However, both the BJP and the NCP approached the central election commission. Two jailed NCP MLAs, namely Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik could not vote after court denied them the chance to vote. One Sena MLA Ramesh Latke died in last month and as a result 285 out of 288 MLAs voted in the election.
