Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and eight others, on Thursday, were elected unopposed to the State Legislative Council. Today was the last date for withdrawal. With this election, Thackeray, who is also the president of Shiv Sena, made his debut as a legislator.
He was sworn in as the CM on November 28 last year and was required to become a member of either house of the legislature before May 27. The state government had twice recommended Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to nominate him from his quota to the upper house. However, Koshyari did not clear Thackeray’s nomination, but urged the Election Commission to issue a poll schedule. Similarly, the Maha Vikas Aghadi government also appealed to the EC to announce a poll and, accordingly, it was scheduled for May 21.
Apart from Thackeray, council deputy chairperson Neelam Gorhe (Shiv Sena), four candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil, Gopichand Padalkar, Praveen Datke and Ramesh Karad, two candidates of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Shashikant Shinde and Amol Mitkari, and Congress’s Rajesh Rathod were in the fray for the nine seats, which fell vacant on April 24.
“All of them were elected unopposed,” an official said.
“The result was officially announced on Thursday after the deadline for withdrawal of nominations ended at 3pm,” the official said.
