Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, 8 others elected unopposed to Council

In what comes as a sigh of relief, Maharashtra chief minister and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray was elected unopposed to the state's legislature on Thursday.

The election of Uddhav to the Maharashtra Legislative Council lends stability to the Sena-NCP-Congress ruling alliance, the Maha Vikas Aghadi.

The 59-year-old Uddhav is the second from the Thackeray family to enter Maharashtra legislature - the other being his son Aditya, who won the Assembly elections form Worli and is now state's protocol, environment and tourism minister.

Besides Thackeray, eight others who were elected are Dr Neelam Gorhe (Sena), Rajesh Rathod (Congress), Shashikant Shinde and Amol Mitkari (NCP) and Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil, Praveen Datke, Gopichand Padalkar and Ramesh Karad.

Thursday was the last date of withdrawal of nomination - and since no additional candidate was there, all nine candidates whose applications were found okay, were declared elected unopposed.

Uddhav was sworn in as Maharashtra chief minister on 28 November, 2019, and then, he was neither an MLA or an MLC - and needed to get elected within six months' time.

The Shiv Sena was planned for the April elections to Council but in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, all polls were postponed by Election Commission.

The MVA government resolved to propose the name of Uddhav for the post of two vacant seats form governor's quota to the Council.

There was a technical issue for Koshyari to take a call as the Representation of People Act, 1951, states that election or nomination to a vacant post cannot be done if the remainder term of the vacancy is less than one year.

The term of the two vacant seats in this case was to end on 6 June.

In the crisis situation, Uddhav spoke to prime minister Narendra Modi to discuss the issue.

Thereafter, the Shiv Sena cited the emergency situation and requested governor to in impress upon ECI to conduct polls, that the latter agreed.

The poll schedule was announced - thereafter the MVA and opposition BJP ensured that it was unopposed.

The 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly was the electoral college for the nine seats.