Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, 8 others elected unopposed to state Legislative Council

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and eight others got elected unopposed to the state Legislative Council, a day after five out of the 14 nominations were either withdrawn or rejected over technical grounds, news agency PTI reported.

Apart from Thackeray, Council Deputy Chairperson Neelam Gorhe (Shiv Sena), four candidates of BJP— Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil, Gopichand Padalkar, Praveen Datke and Ramesh Karad; NCP's Shashikant Shinde and Amol Mitkari and Congress's Rajesh Rathod were in the fray for the nine seats, which fell vacant on April 24.

On Tuesday, four candidates — BJP's Sandeep Lele and Ajit Gopchade and NCP's Kiran Pawaskar and Shivajirao Garje — withdrew their nominations, while papers of Independent candidate Shehbaz Rathod were found invalid during scrutiny, officials at Chief Electoral Office said.

Earlier this month, the Election Commission had announced that the Legislative Council polls 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.

Thackeray, who was sworn in as the CM on November 28 last year, required to become a member of either Houses of the state legislature by May 27. With this election, 59-year-old Thackeray, who is also the president of Shiv Sena, makes his debut as a legislator.

(Inputs and image from theindianexpress.com)