Mumbai, March 9 Six candidates from the ruling Mahayuti alliance, including Union Minister Ramdas Athawale and BJP general secretary Vinod Tawde, and Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi nominee Sharad Pawar, were elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra on Monday.
With seven candidates in the running for as many seats, all of them were elected without a contest to the Upper House of Parliament. March 9 was the last date for withdrawing nominations, and the biennial elections, if required, were scheduled for March 16.
On the last day of filing nominations for seven seats from Maharashtra, which fell vacant in April, only seven candidates filed their papers at Vidhan Bhavan in Mumbai on Thursday (March 5).
Besides Athawale and Tawde, the BJP also fielded two more candidates, Ramrao Wadkute and Maya Ivnate.
Wadkute, who was once considered close to Sharad Pawar during his time in the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), hails from the Hatkar community in the Marathwada region. He was then elected to the state Legislative Council with Pawar's support before joining the BJP.
Ivnate is a former mayor of Nagpur, and has a tribal background.
Jyoti Waghmare, spokesperson for the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, has also made it to the Rajya Sabha.
From the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a BJP ally, former deputy CM Ajit Pawar's son Parth was elected to the Upper House of Parliament.
With this, two members of the Pawar family have become Rajya Sabha members from Maharashtra this time.
Parth's mother, Sunetra Pawar, who is now a deputy CM, is also a Rajya Sabha MP, but she will have to resign and become a member of either House of the state legislature to continue in her Maharashtra cabinet post.