In many ways, Maharashtra Vidhan Parishad (Legislative Council) election results have charted the future course of Maharashtra Politics and the fate of the incumbent MVA Government. The MLC elections resulted in the BJP winning unexpected 5 seats out of 10 whereas, in spite of having adequate numbers, the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance could only manage to win 5 seats out of 6 candidates fielded.
While the BJP won all the five candidates it fielded, it only had enough numbers in the assembly to get four nominees elected to the Council comfortably. BJP leaders Praveen Darekar, Ram Shinde, Shrikant Bharatiya and Uma Khapre won with comfortable margins with the BJP having a total of 106 seats in the assembly, along with some support from the independents.
The victory of the BJP’s fifth candidate Prasad Lad came as a surprise. He secured 28 votes – two votes more than the minimum number of 26 required to get elected as an MLC member. Subsequently, despite having 162 MLAs by its side, the MVA alliance managed to bag only five seats with Shiv Sena’s Sachin Ahir and Amshya Padavi, NCP’s Eknath Khadse and Ramraje Nimbalkar and Congress’ Bhai Jagtap going beyond the magic figure of 26 votes each.
Structure of Maharashtra Vidhan Parishad
The Maharashtra Vidhan Parishad or the Legislative council (MLC) is the upper house of the state legislature. Out of the 78 members in the house, 66 are elected and 12 are nominated by the Governor of Maharashtra. However, a large chunk of seats is reserved for teachers, graduates’ constituency and for members elected from amongst the local bodies of Maharashtra. A total of 30 seats are elected by the members of the Legislative Assembly.
Elections in the Legislative Council are held every two years with one-third of the elected representatives replacing the next lot. Much like the Rajya Sabha, A Maharashtra Legislative Council Member also enjoys a period of six years in the house. Hence, the induction of MLCs in the Vidhan Parishad is directly linked to the party’s candidates in the Vidhan Sabha or the Legislative Assembly.
After the 2019 state assembly elections, the BJP bagged a total of 106 seats. Shivsena with 55 seats, NCP with 52 and the Congress with 44 seats along with the support of some independent candidates, formed the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Government with a said figure of 162 MLAs. The Maharashtra Assembly comprises 288 seats and the number required to form a government is the halfway mark of 145.
What happened at the elections
For a party to induct a large number of its members into Maharashtra’s upper house, it is imperative that its MLAs vote for their party candidates in the MLC elections. However, this was easier said than done in the recently conducted Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections. Elections for the 10 seats (1/3rd of total 30 seats) to be elected by the sitting MLAs were held on June 20, yesterday.
The elections were held on a preferential basis, with BJP’s 4 candidates and two candidates each from the Congress and the Shiv Sena winning in the first round. Given the numbers, the BJP easily managed to win four candidates with Praveen Darekar (29 votes), Ram Shinde (30), Shrikant Bharatiya (30) and Uma Khapre (27) comfortably crossing the ’26 votes’ mark. In the first round itself, BJP bagged a total of 126 votes while it had only 106 MLAs in the Assembly.
In this case, it has been noted that the BJP got help from Independent candidates including Ravi Rana and Ashish Deshmukh deflecting to the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP. There is also a high possibility that MLAs from Shiv Sena could have cross-voted for a BJP candidate in this round.
Two Shiv Sena candidates Sachin Ahir (26) and Amshya Padavi (26) won the election over the edge. While Shiv Sena has 55 MLAs in the assembly, it got only a total of 52 (26+26) votes in the first round. This opens up the possibility of 3 Shiv Sena MLAs voting for a BJP candidate. Alongside, Shiv Sena, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP secured its base to win two seats with Eknath Khadse bagging 29 votes and Ramraje Nimbalkar 28 votes. The NCP secured 4 extra votes so required from Independent MLAs.
In the second round, there was a nail-biting tussle between BJP’s fifth candidate Prasad Lad and Congress candidates Bhai Jagtap and Chandrakant Handore. With no substantial hold over Maharashtra Politics and having only 44 MLAs, it was difficult for the relatively laidback party to secure a minimum of 52 votes two make both of its candidates win.
While Congress’ Bhai Jagtap (Mumbai Congress Head) secured his base by winning 26 votes, Handore lost the election, securing only 22 votes. However, the emerging star of the election saga was BJP’s Prasad Lad who won 28 votes.
This time, BJP had no numbers to back the candidature of Lad, its fifth candidate. However, he bagged more votes than two of the Congress candidates in the second round. What backed Lad was a high percentage of cross-voting from other parties in his support. This means a number of Shiv Sena and Congress MLAs presumably voted for Lad instead of their party candidates. Apart from this, Fadanvis was successful in winning the Independent votes in favour of Prasad Lad.
It is being speculated that 3 votes, each from the Shiv Sena and the Congress could have been deflected in favour of a BJP candidate in the first round itself.
What happens next?
The BJP which won a total number of 123 votes in the recently held Rajya Sabha elections last week, has now secured a total of 134 votes in the MLC elections. With this, it is being speculated that a large chunk of MVA leaders may now be supporting the BJP, who could be seen secretively voting for the BJP in the Rajya Sabha and MLC elections.
With BJP originally having 106 seats, it now enjoys relative support of 134 MLAs in total, given the election results. If a floor test has to be conducted today, the party is only short of 11 seats (to reach the magic number of 145) to form a government on its own. The Maharashtra Assembly which has 288 seats, has been reduced to the current strength of 285 with the death of a Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke and two NCP ministers – Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik arrested.
The dynamic shift in the Maharashtra Politics has been attributed to Devendra Fadnavis, the leader of the Opposition in the assembly who managed to fetch 26 extra votes from the outside and 130 votes in total in the first preference round of MLC elections. With Shiv Sena bigwig Eknath Shinde alongside said 21 MLAs rebelling against the party, the real strength of the MVA alliance has come under scrutiny.
