Mumbai/ Pune: The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition parties and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) went all out to marshal their forces on Friday polling day. The BJP transported ailing Pune MLAs in an ambulance, and the legal team of Nationalist Congress Party leader Nawab Malik knocked on the doors of the Bombay high court (HC) seeking permission for the jailed leader to cast his vote for the Upper House elections.
Even senior BJP leader and former state finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, whose father Dr Sacchidananda Mungantiwar passed away last week, travelled from Nagpur to cast his vote. Shiv Sena legislator and MLA from Alibag in Raigad district Mahendra Dalvi, who is recovering from a surgery, came to the legislature using a walker.
The BJP arranged a cardiac ambulance for Pimpri-Chinchwad legislator Laxman Jagtap to travel Mumbai to exercise his voting rights, quashing earlier plans to transport him by an air ambulance following the advice of his doctors. Legislator from Kasba peth Mukta Tilak reached Mumbai on June 8 and was admitted to Bombay Hospital after she complained of uneasiness on the same day. She too arrived at the Vidhan Sabha in an ambulance and was carried inside on a stretcher.
BJP spokesperson Sandeep Khardekar who travelled with Jagtap said, “As both the MLAs were in critical condition, party leaders Devendra Fadnavis and Chandrakant Patil and checked with them if it was possible to travel to Mumbai. Both Tilak and Jagtap wanted to do their part.”
Jagtap, who represents Chinchwad in the state assembly, has battled a serious ailment for almost two months. Mukta Tilak, who belongs to the family of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, represents the Kasba Peth constituency in Pune city, and is ailing for the past few months, having suffered from cancer and Covid-19.
An independent MLA close to Fadnavis, who recently recovered from Covid-19, said that the former chief minister had used his isolation period to network with leaders and legislators for the polls. “He was chalking out plans for this election around one-and-half to a month in advance,” he claimed.
Similarly, Mungantiwar, whose father passed away on 3 June, flew down from Mumbai via Nagpur specially to exercise his franchise. Mungantiwar represents Ballarshah in Chandrapur in the state assembly.
However, MVA faced disappointment after two of its incarcerated legislators, Malik and former home minister Anil Deshmukh, couldn’t cast their votes.
Malik and Deshmukh, who are arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in separate cases, had moved the Bombay HC on Thursday after their plea was denied by the sessions court. The HC heard Malik’s amended plea on Friday morning, and asked him to move the appropriate bench, effectively ending his chance to cast his vote on Friday. Deshmukh’s plea did not come up for hearing.