Mumbai: With the battle for six Rajya Sabha seats heating up, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a meeting of party legislators and independent and smaller party MLAs on Thursday in a bid to ensure that their vote could be counted on come Friday.
The BJP, which is in opposition in the state with 106 MLAs and enjoys the support of at least seven other MLAs, held the meeting at a south Mumbai hotel a day after the ruling parties of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition held a meeting that was attended by 138 MLAs in all (including 125 from the three coalition partners, Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress), which was widely seen as a show of strength.
Senior BJP leaders, including state unit chief Chandrakant Patil, and Union micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) minister Narayan Rane met party legislators at the Taj President hotel in Cuffe Parade and expressed confidence in bagging the contentious seat for the party which will see a hot contest between the party and Shiv Sena, both of whom have fielded a candidate for it.
Based on their strength in the state assembly, the three ruling parties can each get one nominee elected while the BJP can get two elected. With both sides having surplus votes, the battle is on for the sixth seat for which the Sena and BJP have fielded candidates. The role of 29 independent and smaller party MLAs is crucial.
The polling for Rajya Sabha, scheduled on June 10, will see a contest after 24 years. The members are elected unopposed usually.
So far, the BJP has the backing of seven allies. A party legislator who did not wish to be named said that all BJP legislators and allied MLAs have not yet reached Mumbai.
“Wednesday’s meeting was called to interact with the legislators informally. The final meeting will be held on Thursday, where all the legislators will be told about the voting procedure,” Atul Bhatkhalkar, a BJP MLA said.
Senior BJP leader and MLA Ashish Shelar met Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray to seek the vote of the party’s sole legislator, Raju Patil. Shelar said he was confident of Raj’s support and that the party will win the seat.
“If you see the situation today, it is clear that the BJP will win. The MVA is unable to keep its smaller allies together and the independents are unhappy,” he said.
“We have the number to get all three candidates elected. The entire state will see the strength of BJP on June 10,” BJP legislator, Babanrao Pachpute, who was present at the hotel where several BJP legislators are lodged till the RS poll, said.
To prevent poaching of their legislators, the MVA allies too shifted their MLAs to various hotels in Mumbai in south Mumbai and Powai.
The Samajwadi Party (SP), which has two MLAs in the state assembly said on Wednesday that it will support the MVA parties. Abu Asim Azmi, state president and MLA met chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and home minister Dilip Walse Patil at Varsha, the CM’s official residence at Malabar Hill in south Mumbai on Wednesday and declared his party’s support.
“I raised a few demands such as the formation of state minority commission and the appointment at Maulana Azad Minorities Financial Development Corporation. The chief minister assured me that he will take the decision at the earliest after which I decided to support MVA,” Azmi said.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Thackeray had separate conversations over the phone with Hitendra Thakur, MLA and Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) leader to persuade him to vote for MVA’s candidates.
BVA has three MLAs and is still non-committal. According to party insiders, BJP leader Girish Mahajan was in talks with Thakur.
An MVA delegation comprising Sena parliamentarians Vinayak Raut and Rajan Vichare, NCP leader Ankush Kakade and Congress leader and former MP Ashok Mohol also met Thakur at his Vasai residence on Wednesday.
“Following directives, we met Hitendra Thakur today. He was unhappy with the guardian minister and raised some other issues but after having a telephonic conversation with CM Thackeray and NCP chief, he was looking satisfied,” said a leader who was part of the delegation.
The MVA has fielded its four candidates — Sanjay Raut and Sanjay Pawar (Shiv Sena), Praful Patel (NCP) and Imran Pratapgarhi (Congress). MVA is believed to be short of 16 votes after taking its combined tally of 153 into account. The BJP, in turn, is likely to be short of 20 votes after taking its 106 votes into account.