CM Uddhav Thackeray exudes confidence in MVA's 4 candidates winning Rajya Sabha elections

Ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray convened a meeting of MLAs of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and expressed his confidence in all its four candidates to win the upcoming elections to the Upper House of the Parliament on June 10.

To hold their MLAs safe for the Rajya Sabha polling, Shiv Sena resorted to 'resort politics' and shifted its MLAs to Mumbai's Trident hotel as three alliance partners of the MVA government, Shiv Sena, Congress, NCP held a meeting and discussed the strategy for the upcoming polls in the same hotel on Tuesday.

"No matter how hard anyone tries, Maha Vikas Aghadi's all 4 candidates will go to Delhi as Rajya Sabha MPs. Maharashtra has a tradition of decency, and the same should be maintained by the opposition too," CH Uddhav Thackeray said after the meeting on Tuesday. Notably, along with Thackeray, NCP's supremo Sharad Pawar and Congress' Mallikarjun Kharge were also present in the meeting.

While the CM spoke for all the MVA candidates, former Maharashtra CM and Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan exuded confidence in the party candidates registering a win in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections. "Congress candidate will certainly be elected. We have no threat, have formed our strategy," Chavan told ANI before the meeting.

Parties from Maharashtra contest for sixth Rajya Sabha seat

In the state of Maharashtra, 6 seats are currently vacant due to the retirement of BJP's Piyush Goyal, Vinay Sahastrabuddhe, Congress' Vikas Mahatme, and P Chidambaram. The terms of NCP MP Praful Patel and Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut also end on June 10.

As seven candidates were going to contest for the six Rajya Sabha seats in Maharashtra, the BJP has fielded Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Anil Bonde, and ex-Member of Parliament Dhananjay Mahadik, while Shiv Sena has placed two candidates - Sanjay Raut and Sanjay Pawar. NCP has renominated Praful Patel, while Congress has Imran Pratapgarhi. The battle for the sixth seat is between BJP's Mahadik and Shiv Sena's Sanjay Pawar.

In the 288-member assembly, Shiv Sena has 55 MLAs, NCP 53, Congress 44 and BJP 106, Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) three, two each from AIMIM, Samajwadi Party, and Prahar Janshakti Party, one each from CPI(M), PWP, MNS, Swabhimani Party, Jansurajya Party, Rashtriya Samaj Party, and Krantikari Shetkari Party, independents 13 and there is one vacancy due to Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke's recent demise. Also, two NCP MLAs Anil Deshmukh and Nawab Malik are in prison.