Maharashtra BJP's Amrishbhai Patel wins Dhule and Nandurbar local bodies MLC bypoll

On Thursday, the BJP won the Dhule-Nadurbar local bodies MLC seat in the bypoll that was necessitated after sitting MLC Amrishbhai Patel left the Congress and joined BJP. The Maharashtra Legislative Council has a strength of 78, out of which the elections took place on six seats on Tuesday and counting is underway on Thursday. The seats include the Pune Division Graduates' constituency, Nagpur Division Graduates' constituency, Aurangabad Division Graduates' constituency, Amravati Division Teachers' constituency, Pune Division Teachers' constituency and Dhule-Nandurbar Local Bodies' constituency.

On October 1, 2019, Amrishbhai Patel left the Congress and in the bypolls he was in a direct fight against Congress' Abhijit Patil. Patel has now won the seat keeping up his record of never losing any election. The other five seats witnessed a contest between Sangram Deshmukh (BJP) and Arun Lad (NCP) in the Pune Division Graduates seat, Sandeep Joshi (BJP) and Abhijeet Vanjari (Congress) in Nagpur Division Graduates' seat, Shirish Boralkar (BJP and Satish Chavan (NCP) in Aurangabad Division Graduates' seat, Nitin Dhande (BJP) and Shrikant Deshpande (Shiv Sena) in Amravati Division Teachers' constituency, Jayant Asgaonkar (Congress) and Jitendra Pawar (BJP) in the Pune Division Graduates' seat.

The terms of MLCs namely Satish Chavan (NCP), Chandrakant Patil (BJP), Anil Sole (BJP), and two Independent MLCs Shrikant Deshpande and Dattratray Sawant, ended on July 19.

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MVA Finalises 12 Nominees For Legislative Council

On Friday, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra finalized the list of 12 nominated members to the Maharashtra Legislative Council. The Governor is mandated by the Constitution to nominate to the legislative council 12 members from the fields of literature, art, science, cooperative movement, and social service on the recommendation of the state government. As per sources, actor and former Congress leader Urmila Matondkar, Chandrakant Raghuwanshi, Vijay Karanjkar, and Nitin Bangude Patil have been selected from the Shiv Sena quota.

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Row over CM's MLC nomination

As per Article 164(4) of the Constitution, a non-legislator ceases to be a minister if he is not elected to either House of the legislature within a period of 6 months. Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray who was not a member of either House since being sworn in on November 28, 2019, was set to be fielded as a candidate to one of the 9 MLC seats falling vacant on April 24. However, the Election Commission of India indefinitely postponed the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council polls in the current period owing to the COVID-19 crisis.

Thus, the only option for Thackeray was to enter the Legislative Council as a nominated member. Despite the Maharashtra Cabinet recommending his nomination as an MLC twice, Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari refused to follow suit. The Sena chief reportedly had a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding this issue on April 29.

A day later, the Governor wrote to the Election Commission of India requesting the election for the 9 MLC seats to be held soon. On May 1, the ECI agreed to this request and decided to conduct the MLC elections with the counting of votes scheduled on May 21. Finally, 9 candidates including Thackeray were elected unopposed to the Maharashtra Legislative Council on May 14, thus averting a constitutional crisis. 

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