Maharashtra MLC election: Voting underway; how numbers stack up

The Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena has 37 members in the Assembly.

The biennial elections to 11 seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Council will be held today. The election to the vacant seats is expected to spring a surprise amid fears of crossvoting. The biennial elections, which began at 9 am, will continue till 4 pm. The counting will begin at 5 pm.

This contest is seen as a semi-final before the upcoming state Assembly polls due in October-November.

The Maharashtra Assembly has 288 seats but currently has 274 members. Every MLC candidate needs 23 first-preference votes to get elected. Based on the numbers, the Mahayuti alliance says it is confident of winning nine seats while the MVA is expected to win two. Both sides are short of the required numbers to win the 11th seat.

The ruling Mahayuti, part of the larger NDA alliance, consists of the BJP, the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar wing of the NCP. The alliance has fielded nine candidates and has 201 MLAs, including Independents and smaller parties, supporting it.

Meanwhile, the Maha Vikas Aghadi, which is under the INDIA bloc, has the Congress, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) as its key constituents, It has put up three candidates despite having the support of only 67 MLAs. Six MLAs, including an independent, are neutral and may end up playing a key role in the elections because 12 candidates are now vying for 11 MLC seats.

The BJP, which has 103 MLAs, has fielded five candidates - Pankaja Munde, Yogesh Tilekar, Parinay Phuke, Amit Gorkhe and Sadabhau Khot - which means that it is 12 MLAs short of the number it needs to get them elected.

The Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena has 37 members in the Assembly and has put up two candidates. It is nine MLAs short.

The faction of the NCP led by Ajit Pawar has 39 MLAs and has two candidates in the fray, falling seven short of the 46 votes needed to get them elected.

Catch LIVE updates of the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls.

However, the ruling coalition is banking on nine MLAs from smaller parties and 13 Independents.

In the MVA camp, the Congress has 37 MLAs. This is enough to win one seat, leaving 14 remaining votes that will be enough to see Narvekar, whose party Sena (UBT) has 15 MLAs, go past the finish line.

The Congress is the only party with 14 surplus votes. Sharad Pawar's NCP, with its 13 MLAs, is supporting the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP's) Jayant Patil.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Vijay Wadettiwar of the Congress, organised a dinner meeting for his party MLAs at a hotel in Mumbai on Thursday night. The Congress has issued a whip to its MLAs asking them to vote for candidates of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, according to PTI.

Uddhav Thackeray held a dinner interaction with his MLAs at a five-star hotel in central Mumbai on Wednesday night. All 11 MLAs who attended the meeting stayed back at the hotel, where the four remaining legislators joined them on Thursday, a party leader told NDTV.

The elections are taking place due to the retirement of Vijay Girkar, Nilay Naik, Ramesh Patil and Ramrao Patil of the BJP; Mahadev Jankar of the Rashtriya Samaj Party, an ally of the BJP; former minister Anil Parab of the Shiv Sena (UBT); Manisha Kayande of Shinde's Shiv Sena; Babajani Durrani of Ajit Pawar's NCP; Dr Wajahat Mirza and Dr Pradnya Satav of the Congress; and Jayant Patil of the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP).