Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, 8 others elected without opposition to the State Legislative Council

Uddhav Thackeray, who took office as CM on November 28 last year, was due to be a member of either chamber of the state legislature by May 27.

Maharashtra Prime Minister Uddhav Thackeray and eight others were elected without opposition to the state Legislative Council, a day after five of the 14 nominations were withdrawn or rejected for technical reasons, the PTI news agency reported.

In addition to Thackeray, Vice President of the Council Neelam Gorhe (Shiv Sena), four BJP candidates: Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil, Gopichand Padalkar, Praveen Datke and Ramesh Karad; Shashikant Shinde and Amol Mitkari of the NCP and Rajesh Rathod of Congress were in the fray for the nine seats, which became vacant on April 24.

On Tuesday, four candidates, BJP’s Sandeep Lele and Ajit Gopchade and Kiran Pawaskar and Shivajirao Garje of NCP, withdrew their nominations, while documents by independent candidate Shehbaz Rathod were declared invalid during the count, officials from the Chief Electoral Office said.

Earlier this month, the Electoral Commission had announced that the Legislative Council elections for nine seats would be held on May 21 after Thackeray approached Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to avoid the constitutional crisis in the state.

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Thackeray, who took office as CM on November 28 last year, was due to be a member of either chamber of the state legislature by May 27. With this election, Thackeray, 59, who is also the president of Shiv Sena, makes his debut as a legislator.

With PTI inputs

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