Maharashtra MLC attendance: Ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray logs 31% in 4 years; two members skip 3 sessions

In contrast, NCP’s Amol Mitkari, Shashikant Shinde of NCP (SP) and Congress’s Rajesh Rathod logged more than 90% attendance during their tenure as members of the legislative council, according to the statistics gathered from the legislature.

Mumbai: Former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray attended just 42 of 133 legislative sittings as MLC in the last four years, while Shiv Sena's Bhavana Gawali and Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar of NCP skipped three sessions since 2024, as per available data.

In contrast, NCP’s Amol Mitkari, Shashikant Shinde of NCP (SP) and Congress’s Rajesh Rathod logged more than 90 per cent attendance during their tenure as members of the legislative council, according to the statistics gathered from the legislature.

Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Thackeray, Mitkari, Shinde and Rathod were among nine members of the legislative council who retired on May 13.

They were elected to the Upper House of the state legislature in 2020 along with Neelam Gorhe, who served as deputy chairperson (as part of the undivided Shiv Sena), and BJP leaders Ranjit Sinh Mohite-Patil, Ramesh Karad, Gopichand Padalkar and Praveen Datke.

Karad, Padalkar and Datke resigned as MLCs after being elected to the legislative assembly in the 2024 state polls.

Thackeray became the chief minister in 2019 and entered the legislative council in 2020. He attended only 42 of the 133 sittings since the monsoon session of 2022, which comes to 31.58 per cent, as per the data gathered from the Maharashtra legislature.

After he resigned as the CM in 2022, Thackeray attended the subsequent monsoon session just once. He attended four of the 16 sittings in the budget session of 2026, his last in the council.

There are no records of attendance of the CM, ministers, chairman, deputy chair and leader of opposition. Thackeray’s records are not available from 2020 to 2022 as he was the CM during that time. Similarly, records of Gorhe are not available since she was the deputy chairperson.

As per the data, Shiv Sena MLC Bhavana Gawali (elected in 2024) and former council deputy chairperson Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar of NCP (elected in 2022) did not attend a single sitting in three sessions of the legislature (winter sessions of 2024 and 2025 and budget session of 2026).

By contrast, Mitkari clocked an impressive 96.50 per cent attendance during his six-year tenure, followed by Shinde and Rathod (both recording over 93 per cent).

Members like Rathod and Mitkari have recorded 100 per cent attendance in 13 of the 18 sessions spanning over six years. Shinde had a 100 per cent record in 11 of 18 sessions.

Among the current MLCs, Manisha Kayande (a governor-nominated but a Shiv Sena member), Jagannath Abhyankar of Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sudhakar Adbale (Congress) have posted a commendable 100 per cent attendance in many sessions.