Mumbai : After much dilly-dallying over the candidature for the by-election to the Legislative Council, the Congress has finally decided to field Muzaffar Hussain as their candidate. With this decision, it is clear that Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan has once again failed to get his choice Anandrao Patil nominated to the Council. This will be second term for Hussain in the council.
The Election Commission had announced to hold election on November 14 for the seat vacated due to resignation of Hussain Dalwai after he was elected to Rajya Sabha. Monday is the last day for filing nominations. The members of legislative assembly will vote for this seat. Congress and NCP has clear majority in the house. As the vacated seat was from Congress quota, it is almost clear that the election will be unopposed.
Muzaffar Hussain, a prominent leader of Congress from Thane district started his political career as a youth Congress worker. He was elected to the Mira-Bhayander Municipal Corporation in 1991. He also worked as State Youth Congress president for a long time. He is also a builder. In 2004, he was elected to the Legislative Council and worked till 2009. He was trying to get re-nominated to the council for the last few years. He got a major political shock when his stronghold Mira-Bhayander Assembly constituency was allotted to NCP during seat sharing in 2009. He could not contest assembly election then. After a few months, he contested by-election from Bhiwandi as the seat was vacated by SP leader Abu Azmi. But he was defeated by a Shiv Sena candidate.
Chief Minister Chavan was lobbying for his close confidant Anandrao Patil who is Satara District Congress president. But the Congress high command took a decision in principle to allot the seat to the minority candidate. Earlier, S Q Zama, a prominent mine worker leader’s name was almost cleared. But, Mohan Prakash, Congress incharge of the state, Manikrao Thakre, State Congress president, senior leader Gulam Nabi Azad and Digvijay Singh put their weight behind Hussain.
From Thane, Congress has negligible presence in the legislature. Rajendra Gavit is the only MLA from the district which has 24 MLAs in the House. Since Dalwai was from Konkan, it was decided to allot the seat to Konkan instead of Vidarbha. Names of Hussain and Mushtaq Antulay were in the race.
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