Congress MLAs were being called by Central investigation agencies directly and asked to support the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Maharashtra Legislative Council polls slated for June 20, State Congress president Nana Patole alleged on Saturday.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), meanwhile, said that “the entire State of Maharashtra will witness a miracle” on polling day.
“The BJP-led Central government is abusing the [state] machinery to harass the Opposition across the country. These [Central] agencies are being misused to suppress the voice of the Opposition and intimidate it. Our MLAs are being called directly and asked to favour the BJP,” Mr. Patole claimed, adding that information pertaining to this would be brought to light “at an appropriate time”.
The Congress leader said that the scenario of the Rajya Sabha elections would not be repeated on Saturday. “The BJP is creating obstacles in the Legislative Council elections but the calculation of numbers is on our side. We need 12 votes for the second seat while the BJP needs 22 votes for the fifth candidate [out of a total of 10 seats being polled]. However, the BJP is claiming victory on the basis of money and Central investigative agencies, but it will not work this time and MVA [Maha Vikas Aghadi, the ruling alliance] will win six seats,” he said.
The NCP, an MVA alliance partner, said that the State would witness a miracle on Monday, the polling day. “We are discussing on ensuring quota to all our candidates. Independents are being contacted and have been told about the voting and they have all confirmed that they will vote as per the directions of the Chief Minister,” Deputy Chief Minister and NCP leader Ajit Pawar said.
Mr. Ajit Pawar said that with three out of 288 MLAs already out of the voters’ list — two NCP MLAs are in jail and one Shiv Sena MLA died — the quota to ensure victory could come down to 26. “We are sure that not only our [MLAs] but even Opposition MLAs will vote for our candidates by following their conscience,” he said.
Both the Congress and NCP denied rumours of faultlines within the MVA.
While the BJP has nominated five candidates (Pravin Darekar, Ram Shinde, Shrikant Bharatiya, Uma Khapre and Prasad Lad), the MVA alliance’s three parties have fielded two candidates each — the Shiv Sena is fielding Sachin Ahir and Amshya Padvi; the NCP is fielding Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar and Eknath Khadse; the Congress is fielding Chandrakant Handore and Bhai Jagtap. The June 20 election is likely to lead to a face-off between the BJP’s Mr. Lad and the Congress’ Mr. Jagtap.
