Mumbai: Six Mahayuti candidates, including Union Minister Ramdas Athawale and BJP General Secretary Vinod Tawde, along with Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) nominee and NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday filed their nominations for the seven Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra falling vacant next month.
Apart from the four candidates of the BJP, ally NCP fielded late Ajit Pawar’s son Parth Pawar, while the Shiv Sena gave opportunity to its party spokesperson Jyoti Waghmare for elections to the Upper House of Parliament.
Today was the last date for filing nominations till 3 P.M. while withdrawal can be done up to March 9. The polling is slated for March 16.
The ruling BJP has fielded party General Secretary Vinod Tawde, Union Minister of State for Social Justice Ramdas Athawale, former Nagpur Mayor and sitting Corporator Maya Chintaman Ivnate and former Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLC Ramrao Wadkute for the biennial elections. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis accompanied the BJP candidates during the filing of nominations.
Tawde, a former MLC, won the 2014 Maharashtra Assembly elections for the first time and served as the state’s education minister. Though he was denied a ticket in the 2019 Assembly polls, he was later elevated to the national level in the party and is currently its general secretary.
Wadkute, once considered a close associate of Sharad Pawar in the undivided NCP, hails from the Hatkar community in the Marathwada region. He was earlier elected to the legislative council with Sharad Pawar’s backing before joining the BJP. Ivnate served as the first Mayor of Nagpur from a tribal background.
The Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena fielded party spokesperson Jyoti Waghmare amid speculations that former Lok Sabha MP Rahul Shewale, a close aide of Shinde, would be nominated to the Upper House of Parliament. He had lost the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
NCP(SP) chief Sharad Pawar is set to get a fresh Rajya Sabha term after the Congress on Wednesday declared support to him as the Opposition bloc’s candidate from Maharashtra for the lone Rajya Sabha seat it can win out of the total seven.
The decision, announced by AICC General Secretary Ramesh Chennithala on Wednesday, ended days of speculation about the MVA candidate as all three allies – Congress, NCP(SP) and Shiv Sena(UBT) – had staked claim to the lone seat the bloc can win given their strength in the Assembly.
As Sharad Pawar is recovering from illness, the legislative staff on behalf of the electoral officer visited his residence in south Mumbai and took oath.
Thereafter, necessary formalities with regard to submission of his nomination was completed by his lawyer accompanied by his daughter and MP Supriya Sule and other party leaders.
Late Ajit Pawar’s son Parth Pawar is in the fray from the ruling NCP. He had earlier tried his electoral luck in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from the Maval constituency, but could not win. He was recently in the news after a controversial land deal in Pune’s Mundhwa sparked outrage. The Rs 300-crore deal to sell the 40-acre land parcel to Amadea Enterprises LLP, in which Parth holds 99 per cent stakes, came under the scanner after it emerged that the land belongs to the government, and the firm was exempted from paying the stamp duty. The deal was subsequently cancelled.
Parth’s mother Sunetra Pawar, who became the Deputy CM of Maharashtra following her husband Ajit Pawar’s death in a plane crash on January 28, continues to be a Rajya Sabha member. She has not tendered her resignation of the Rajya Sabha membership so far.
The Rajya Sabha members from Maharashtra whose six-year term is ending in April are: Sharad Pawar, Ramdas Athawale, Fauzia Khan of NCP(SP), Rajni Patil (Congress), Priyanka Chaturvedi (Shiv Sena-UBT), and Dhananjay Patil and Bhagwat Karad (both from the BJP). The MVA’s combined tally translates into the assured election of one candidate.
By this arithmetic, the Mahayuti alliance can win six of the seven seats, subject to cross-voting or strategic transfers under the preferential voting system. Two independents Umesh Mhetre and K Sainna have also filed their nominations but they are expected to be rejected based on the procedural anomalies.
(IANS)
