CM Uddhav Thackeray may contest Maha Council bypolls

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray may contest the ensuing elections to the Maharashtra Legislative Council.

As of now, Uddhav (59), the Shiv Sena President and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leader, is neither a member of Assembly nor Council.

Uddhav, the son of legendary Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, was sworn in as Maharashtra Chief Minister on November 28, 2019, and he has to get elected to either House of Maharashtra legislature within six months from the day he took over.

On Friday, the Election Commission of India announced the schedule for elections to two seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council. These seats fell vacant after the election of Dhananjay Munde (NCP) and Tanaji Sawant (Shiv Sena) to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly during the September-October, 2019 polls. While Munde was elected from Parli, Sawant won from the Bhum Paranda seat.

Incidentally, Sawant was one of the aspirants for the Cabinet berth and he has not been included in the ministry. Sawant represented the Yavatmal local authorities constituency in the Council, for Munde. In fact, Munde, the nephew of late BJP leader Gopinath Munde, was also Leader of Opposition in Council.

The notification for the Council polls will be issued on January 7 and the last date of filing nominations is January 14. While scrutiny would be held on January 15, the last date of withdrawal would be on January 17. Polling, if necessitated, would be held on January 24 and on January 31, in case of the seats vacated by Munde and Sawant, respectively.

There has been no official comment from the MVA or Shiv Sena about Uddhav's possible candidature, so far. Since the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress combine has a comfortable majority in the Assembly, Uddhav would go in for the seat vacated by Munde.