Maharashtra Legislative Council elections: Council poll victory a trailer, says CM Shinde

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Friday said that the victory of all nine Mahayuti ruling alliance candidates in the Legislative Council polls was a trailer ahead of the state assembly polls later this year reported the PTITalking to reporters CM Eknath Shinde said that a false narrative was set by the opposition in the Lok Sabha elections 2024 and people were misledMahayuti has registered a big win This is a good start A false narrative that the Constitution will be changed by the BJP was set People were misled Mahayutis victory in the legislative council polls is a trailer he said according to the PTIMeanwhile Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the opposition was claiming a candidate of the ruling alliance would lose but the results showed the Mahayuti got votes of not just its constituents but even from Maha Vikas Aghadi MVA legislators as per the PTIThe Bharatiya Janata Party BJP won five seats while Chief Minister Eknath Shindeled Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawarled Nationalist Congress Party NCP bagged two each giving the ruling alliance wins on nine of the 11 seats for which polls were held earlier in the dayFrom the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi MVA Milind Narvekar a close aide of Shiv Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray and Congress candidate Pradnya Satav won However Peasants and Workers Party PWP candidate Jayant Patil who was supported by Sharad Pawarled NCP SP lost the pollsDeputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said he Fadnavis and Shinde held multiple meetings to ensure better coordination and responsibilities were shared which led to the victory of Mahayuti candidatesHe said the Mahayuti will work unitedly to ensure victory of the alliance in assembly pollsThe NCP fielded Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar and both won despite the Ajit Pawarled party falling short of votesWe NCP had 42 votes but MLAs gave more votes to Vitekar and Garje There were rumours there will be a split in the NCP and some of its MLAs could cross vote Pawar saidThe election was necessitated as 11 members of the legislative council MLCs are completing their sixyear term on July 27The 288member legislative assembly was the electoral college for the polls and its current strength is 274Each winning candidate required a quota of 23 firstpreference votesThe BJP is the largest party in the assembly with 103 members followed by the NCP 42 Shiv Sena 38 Congress 37 Shiv Sena UBT 15 and NCP SP 10The BJP fielded former Maharashtra minister Pankaja Munde Yogesh Tilekar Parinay Phuke Amit Gorkhe and Sadabhau Khot The Shiv Sena candidates were former Lok Sabha MPs Krupal Tumane and Bhavana Gawali while the NCP had given tickets to Shivajirao Garje and Rajesh Vitekar the news agency reported on FridayThe opposition Congress nominated Satav for another term while Sena UBT had fielded NarvekarThe third MVA constituent NCP SP did not field a candidate and instead extended support to PWPs Jayant Patilwitn PTI inputs