Mumbai: Battlelines are drawn for the elections to four seats of Maharashtra Legislative Council -- the first electoral battle after the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls and in the run-up to the Vidhan Sabha polls.
The four seats are very crucial for both, the BJP-led Maha Yuti (NDA) and Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (I.N.D.I.A.).
With the MVA winning 31 of the 48 Lok Sabha seats and the BJP-led alliance settling for 17, this election in Maharashtra is going to be fierce and high-voltage campaigning has commenced.
The four seats are Mumbai Graduates’ constituency, Konkan Division Graduates’ constituency, Nashik Division Teachers’ constituency and Mumbai Teachers’ constituency.
Four members, who retired on June 7 are: Vilas Potnis of Shiv Sena (UBT), Niranjan Davkhare (BJP), Kapil Patil (Lok Bharti) and Kishore Darade (Independent).
The elections are scheduled on June 26 while the votes would be taken up for counting on July 1.
A total of 55 candidates are in fray in the four seats.
The Mumbai Graduates’ constituency will see a fight between Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Anil Parab, who is a close aide of Uddhav Thackeray and Dr Deepak Sawant of Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena. Both Parab and Dr Sawant are former ministers.
The Konkan Graduates constituency would see a fight between BJP’s Niranjan Davkhare and Ramesh Keer of Congress. Davkhare’s father late Vasant Davkhare, who was a close aide of NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar, had been a former Thane Mayor and ex Deputy Chairperson of Council.
For the Mumbai Teachers’ constituency, the battle is between JM Abhyankar of Shiv Sena (UBT), Subhash More of Shikshak Party, Shivajirao Nalavade and Shivnath Darade, who have support of BJP. Abhyankar is a Mumbai division chief of Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Shikshak Sena and former chairman of Maharashtra State Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission and former vice chairman of Maharashtra State Minorities Commission.
The Nashik Teachers’ constituency would see a fight between Kishor Darade of Shiv Sena, Sandip Dulwe of Shiv Sena (UBT) and Mahendra Bhavsar (NCP).
Of the 78 seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council, 21 are vacant.
These include the 12 vacancies of the Governor-appointed quota.
In the House, the BJP has 22 members, Shiv Sena (undivided) has 11 members, NCP (undivided) 9, Congress 8.
The JD (U), Peasants and Workers Party, and Rashtriya Samaj Paksha have one member each while four are Independents.