Mumbai: The Shiv Sena (UBT) will field its candidate for the upcoming Maharashtra legislative council polls, its chief Uddhav Thackeray said on Thursday, asserting that the opposition has got its math right in order to get its nominee elected.
The biennial elections for 11 seats of the Upper House of the state legislature will take place on July 12. This will be the first council election in Maharashtra, where MLAs will be voting after the vertical split in the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
"We (Shiv Sena UBT) will field a candidate in the council polls because there are 11 seats and every party (of the opposition - the NCP (SP), Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress) can win one seat each. Our votes are fixed," Thackeray said, fuelling speculation that there will be cross-voting. "Our calculations need not be told publicly. How I will win the poll need not be told...Our math is right," he said.
The former chief minister said the ruling alliance faces a challenge to keep its MLAs intact after the Lok Sabha poll results. The six-year term in office of 11 MLCs, elected by the Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs), is due to end on July 27 on their retirement. The biennial election to the upper house of the state legislature is being held just months ahead of assembly polls which are due in October.
With 14 vacancies in the 288-member house, the electoral college is 274 and the quota for the winning candidate is 23. The Ajit Pawar-led NCP has 41 MLAs, Eknath Shinde-led Sena has 40 and BJP has 103. The Congress has 37, Shiv Sena (UBT) has 13 and NCP (SP) has 15. The NCP (SP) will support Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) leader Jayant Patil.
In legislative council polls held in 2022, Congress' Chandrakant Handore lost despite the party having numbers, indicating that crossvoting took place.
