RS polls: Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut, Sanjay Pawar file nominations, Congress yet to choose candidate

 MVA will win all four seats it is contesting, not scared of BJP’s pressure tactics: Raut

The Shiv Sena’s candidates for the coming Rajya Sabha polls - Sanjay Raut and Sanjay Pawar - filed their nominations on Thursday. Mr. Raut remarked that the Sena would win both seats.

Mr. Raut, the Sena’s chief spokesperson and an old Rajya Sabha hand, filed his nomination in the presence of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and senior Congressman Balasaheb Thorat with all Sena legislators and MPs in attendance.

“I can say without doubt that this time both candidates of the Sena will go to the Rajya Sabha. All four MVA candidates will coast to victory,” he stated.

Of the 57 Rajya Sabha seats across the country going to the polls on June 10, six are from Maharashtra. Going by the respective numerical strength of the major parties in the State, the Opposition BJP, which is numerically the single largest party (with 106 seats) is set to get two seats with 42 votes deciding each seat, while the three ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’ coalition parties — the Shiv Sena (56 seats), the NCP (53 seats) and the Congress (44 seats seats) — are set to get one seat each.

While Mr. Raut has already served three terms as a Rajya Sabha member, helming the Sena in the House since 2004, this is Mr. Sanjay Pawar’s first shot at national politics.

Prior to this, Mr. Pawar has barely been known outside Kolhapur. He has been active primarily in local and regional politics. Beginning as a humble Shiv Sena shakha pramukh (‘branch head’), he has served as a corporator thrice in the Kolhapur civic body. He has been especially aggressive in expressing the Sena’s line on the thorny Maharashtra-Karnataka border problem question, with the party long advocating the return of Belagavi, which has a significant Marathi-speaking population, to Maharashtra.

Taking jibes at the BJP on the occasion, Mr. Raut said the MVA was one entity and that it would win all the four seats.