After an intense political drama for over a month, Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray crossed a major hurdle by getting elected to Maharashtra Legislative Council unopposed.
According to the reports, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday made his debut as a legislator, even though indirectly, after he and eight others were declared elected unopposed to the state Legislative Council.
Apart from Thackeray, Council Deputy Chairperson and Shiv Sena leader Neelam Gorhe, four candidates of BJP – Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil, Gopichand Padalkar, Praveen Datke and Ramesh Karad, NCP’s Shashikant Shinde and Amol Mitkari, Rajesh Rathod of the Congress were lected for the nine seats, which fell vacant on April 24.
All the nine candidates elected unopposed
“All of them were elected unopposed. The result was officially announced on Thursday after the deadline for withdrawal of nominations ended at 3 pm,” the official said.
On Tuesday, four candidates – BJP’s Sandeep Lele and Ajit Gopchade and NCP’s Kiran Pawaskar and Shivajirao Garje had withdrawn their nominations. Another independent candidate Shehbaz Rathod’s nomination was found invalid during scrutiny.
Thackeray, who was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on November 28 last year, had to become a member of either Houses of the state legislature by May 27, as he had not contested the assembly election. Initially, he tried to get himself nominated to the Maharashtra legislative assembly. However, he had faced some criticism on social media for running away from direct elections. it was also pointed out that there is no history of a nominated member becoming chief minister, and it would set a bad precedent.
Later, Uddhav Thackeray had approached Prime Minister Narendra Modi pleading him to intervene to avoid the constitutional crisis in the state.
Uddhav Thackeray had to choose the Legislative Council route to remain as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra as byelections to the assembly could not be held due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
