Maharashtra Council poll counting delayed by four hours

A number of objections were raised by the ruling MVA alliance and the BJP

Counting for the fiercely fought Maharashtra Legislative Council polls for 10 seats was to begin at the time of writing this report after both ruling and Opposition parties approached the Election Commission of India (EC) with objections over each others’ votes.

The counting of polls was delayed by four hours following a number of objections raised by the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Initially, the Congress party raised an objection to two ailing BJP MLAs, Mukta Tilak and Laxman Jagtap, casting votes via an assistant. BJP leader Girish Mahajan claimed that the party had taken prior permission for this from the State Election Commission. The complaint from Congress was rejected by first by the State Election Commission and later by the Central Election Commission.

While verifying the votes that had been cast, the BJP objected to the MVA’s votes, claiming the preference had been overwritten. Moments later, the MVA objected the BJP’s vote. Both these votes were considered invalid by the Returning Officer, and instead of 285, only 283 votes were decided to be counted. However, both the BJP and the NCP approached the EC.  

The BJP had nominated five candidates — Pravin Darekar, Ram Shinde, Shrikant Bharatiya, Uma Khapre and Prasad Lad. The three parties of the MVA had fielded two candidates each. The Shiv Sena had given a ticket to Sachin Ahir and Amshya Padvi, while the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had fielded Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar and Eknath Khadse. The Congress had given ticket to Chandrakant Handore and Bhai Jagtap. The June 20 election was slated to be between Mr. Lad and Mr. Jagtap.    

Two jailed NCP MLAs, Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik, could not vote after court denied them the chance to vote. One Sena MLA, Ramesh Latke, died in May and, as a result, 285 out of 288 MLAs voted in the election.