Maharashtra: Mahayuti members to sail with the wind in Council bye-elections

Mumbai: Riding on the brute majority in the Legislative Assembly, five candidates of the ruling Mahayuti-NDA in Maharashtra are set to get elected to the Legislative Council.

Short of numbers, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi-I.N.D.I.A. bloc has stayed away from fielding candidates for the bye-elections, which has been as five MLCs were elected as MLAs in the 2024 Vidhan Sabha polls.

Those Council members elected to the Assembly are Praveen Datke, Ramesh Karad and Gopichand Padalkar (both BJP), Rajesh Vitekar (NCP) and Amshya Padvi (Shiv Sena). They were elected to the assembly in November 2024.

The five candidates include three from the BJP and one each from the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-headed NCP.

The BJP candidates are Dadarao Keche (71), Sandeep Joshi (54) and Sanjay Kanekar (54).

The Shiv Sena candidate is Chandrakant Raghuvanshi (64) while the NCP candidate is Sanjay Khodke (66).

All three BJP candidates are considered close to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Joshi is a former mayor of Nagpur, while Kenekar is a BJP general secretary and trusted aide. Keche, a former MLA from Arvi in Wardha, did not get a ticket in the 2024 Assembly election.

Khodke is a close aide of Pawar.

His wife Sulbha Khodke is an MLA from Amravati.

Raghuvanshi had been a member of the Council for three terms earlier.

For the bye-elections of the MLCs, the electoral college is the 288-member Assembly.

The BJP has 132 MLAs, Shiv Sena 57, and NCP 41, making them comfortably placed to win all five seats, given their dominating presence in the lower house.

The last date for scrutiny of nominations is March 18, while candidates can withdraw from the contest on March 20. If needed, voting will take place on March 27.