BJP, Shiv Sena to lock horns over sixth Rajya Sabha seat from Maharashtra

The BJP and Shiv Sena will continue to fight for the sixth seat of Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra as the deadline to withdraw nominations ended today.

Maharashtra is expected to see an interesting turn of events, as both the BJP and Shiv Sena have not withdrawn the nomination of their candidates contesting for the sixth seat of Rajya Sabha from the state.

The candidates were given time till 3 pm today to withdraw their nominations. The elections to Rajya Sabha will be held on June 10.

Earlier today, a delegation of Mahavikas Aghadi (MVA) government including Shiv Sena MP Anil Desai, NCP minister Chagan Bhujbal and Congress minister Sunil Kedar met Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis and BJP State President Chandrakant Patil at Fadnavis' official residence Sagar Bungalow in Mumbai.

Chandrakant Patil later told the media that the MVA delegation had given them a proposal of withdrawing their Rajya Sabha candidate in return for fielding one extra candidate in Legislative Council elections slated to be on June 20.However, Patil clarified that, "they have rejected their offer and, in fact, given them a counteroffer of withdrawing one of their MVA's candidates from Rajya Sabha elections. While in return, the BJP will not field a fifth candidate for MLC elections, allowing it to be unopposed. But they did not receive any feedback from MVA leaders, which compelled them to contest for Rajya Sabha."

In Maharashtra, out of 288 assembly seats, each candidate needs 42 votes to win, for which members of the Maharashtra Assembly will be the electors.

Shiv Sena has 55 MLAs, NCP has 53 and Congress 44. Also, MVA claims to have the support of eight independents and eight smaller party votes. As per the MVA’s claim, this tally comes to around 168.

Here, Shiv Sena has 13 surplus votes and needs 29 votes transferred from allies and supporters.Similarly, the BJP has 106 branded votes (votes coming from their own party members) while they claim to have the support of five independent MLAs and two votes of supported parties. Hence, the BJP's tally sums up to 113. In this case, BJP has 29 surplus votes. Therefore, BJP needs 13 votes for their third candidate to win.