A disqualified vote of a Shiv Sena lawmaker was among the key factors that led to a spectacular victory of all three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections in Maharashtra, leading to the defeat of the Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Pawar.
The counting of votes, which started past midnight after being stalled over allegations of violation of rules by both BJP and the state’s ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), saw all the BJP candidates getting more votes than what was required to win, diminishing chances for the MVA’s fourth and Sena’s second candidate. In Maharashtra, a minimum of 41 votes were required for a candidate to win a seat. But BJP candidates Union minister Piyush Goyal and the second BJP candidate Anil Bonde got 48 votes. The Congress’ lone nominee Imran Pratapgarhi got 44 votes and NCP leader and former union minister Praful Patel received 43 votes. Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut managed the bare minimum — 41 votes. BJP’s third candidate Dhananjay Mahadik got 41 votes. A total of 284 valid votes were cast.
For the ruling MVA, a special Mumbai court’s decision not to allow two NCP MLAs Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh, both in jail on money laundering charges, proved to be a major handicap in an election where six seats were up for grabs.A BJP delegation led by minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi met EC officials on Friday afternoon to demand that the votes of NCP lawmaker Jitendra Awhad, Congress’ Yashomati Thakur and Sena MLA Suhas Kande must be rejected as they showed their ballot papers to unauthorised party leaders.
