In what turned out to be a day of twists and turns, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) trumped over Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) by winning three out six seats in a fiercely contested battle for Rajya Sabha which witnessed a delay of over nine hours to start counting as a result of demands to cancel votes, appeal for the same to the central election commission and micro-management by the BJP which helped it to win this battle of prestige.
The results also show that the BJP has managed to snatch at least nine votes from the MVA. Independents and smaller parties which had earlier pledged allegiance to the MVA seem to have backtracked on the word and voted for the BJP. The results also pave the way for yet another battle on June 20 for the state council polls. A confident BJP is unlikely to go on defensive for the upcoming council polls.
On Friday, MVA suffered a shock after the court refused to grant permission to two of the jailed MLAs of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), namely Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh, to vote for the election. With death of one of the Sena MLAs the ruling MVA was already facing the tough task of achieving the quota of 41 and the situation turned grave for the MVA with Central Election Commission invalidating one vote of Sena MLA.
