Maharashtra MLC poll: MVA on shaky ground; Uddhav calls urgent meet after suspected cross-voting

BJP on Monday won all five seats it contested in the MLC election, while Congress's Chandrakant Handore lost

The Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance, constituting Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress, has called its MLAs and top leaders to Mumbai as the Uddhav Thackeray-led two-and-a-half-year-old dispensation was in the danger zone in the wake of back-to-back setbacks in the Rajya Sabha and Maharashtra Legislative Assembly polls.

Senior Shiv Sena MLA and urban development minister Eknath Shinde is camping in Le Meridien hotel in Surat with a group of nearly a dozen MLAs.

Thackeray will be chairing a meeting of Shiv Sena leaders and MLAs in Varsha, his official residence in Mumbai.

“Everything will be and fine,” said Shiv Sena chief spokesperson Sanjay Raut. “Eknath Shinde is a local Shiv Sainik, he has worked with Balasaheb Thackeray, he has been part of several agitations and campaigns of Shiv Sena,” he said, adding that BJP is trying Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan pattern in Maharashtra.

Raut also spoke to NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, who is the chief architect of the MVA dispensation.

Pawar, who is in New Delhi for a meeting of Opposition parties to discuss Presidential polls, is expected to return to Mumbai in the evening and meet top leaders and MLAs.

Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar, his daughter Supriya Sule and state NCP president and water resources and command area development minister Jayant Patil are monitoring the situation.

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State Congress president Nana Patole is also returning to Mumbai and has called top leaders and MLAs for a meeting.

According to him, the defeat of the Congress candidate Chandrakant Handore in the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls would be discussed in the meeting.

The Congress had put up two candidates in the MLC polls. While Handore lost, Mumbai Congress president Bhai Jagtap won.

However, Patole refused to comment on the developments involving Shiv Sena.

Congress Legislature Party leader Balasaheb Thorat is upset over the way the Congress candidate lost.

“It is time to discuss about the MVA the way our candidate lost,” he said. Meanwhile, leader of opposition and ex-chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was in New Delhi.

“It is our culture…he had gone to New Delhi to meet leaders after the victory in Rajya Sabha and Council polls,” Thorat said, adding that Fadnavis being in New Delhi and Shinde being in Surat could just be a coincidence.

In fact, Shinde has very good relations with Gujarat BJP chief C R Patil. “May be Shinde saheb has gone to meet his friend,” he said in response to queries that Shinde was untraceable.