Seven seats are important in the the Legislative Council polls on Sunday for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as the party has no majority in the Upper House, giving dominance to the National Congress Party (NCP), which has the highest number of members. Though the BJP is contesting all the seats in alliance with Shiv Sena, it is trying its best to avoid cross voting.
The members of seven civic bodies will vote on Sunday for eight seats of the Council including two in Mumbai and one each in Akola-Washim-Buldhana, Dhule-Nandurbar, Kolhapur, Ahmednagar and Solapur. The BJP has already won the Nagpur seat unopposed. The main fight is considered to be among Shiv Sena’s Ramdas Kadam, Congress’ Bhai Jagtap and Prasad Lad, who is a member of the NCP but is contesting independently for Mumbai.
At present among the 78 members of the Council, NCP has 28, Congress 21, BJP 12, Shiv Sena seven and independents 10. The situation is like Rajya Sabha where Congress has a majority. The strength of BJP in the Council restricts the party from getting bills passed or taking some decision with majority. “We are trying our best to get most members from Shiv Sena-BJP alliance elected. We are aware about our weak presence in the council. But it will increase gradually,” a BJP minister said. On the other hand, Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said, “We are confidant that our candidates will win the polls. There is competition but we have tried our best.”
Though Congress and NCP are allies, both parties have rebel candidates that are running against their official candidates at two places. Mr Lad is contesting against Mr Jagtap in Mumbai. NCP has maintained that Mr Lad was not its official candidate, but votes might get divided because of him. On the other hand, Congress has fielded Jayant Sasane from Ahmednagar against the NCP candidate.
