Mumbai, March 5 Six candidates from the Mahayuti alliance, including Union Minister Ramdas Athawale and BJP leader Vinod Tawde, along with opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi nominee Sharad Pawar, filed their nominations on Thursday for the seven Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra that will become vacant next month.
In addition to the four BJP candidates, the NCP, an ally, fielded the late Ajit Pawar's son, Parth, while the Shiv Sena gave an opportunity to its party spokesperson, Jyoti Waghmare, for elections to the Upper House of Parliament.
All these leaders filed their nominations at the Vidhan Bhavan, the state legislature complex, located in south Mumbai, on the last day of the nomination process. The process was open until 3 pm.
Polling will be held on March 16 between 9 am and 4 pm, and counting is scheduled to begin at 5 pm on the same day. Members of the legislative assemblies form the electoral college for Rajya Sabha elections.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded party general secretary Vinod Tawde, Union Minister of State for Social Justice Ramdas Athawale, former Nagpur mayor and sitting corporator Maya Chintaman Ivnate, and former Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLC Ramrao Wadkute for the biennial elections.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis accompanied the BJP candidates during the filing of nominations.
Tawde, a former MLC, won the 2014 Maharashtra assembly election for the first time and served as the state's education minister. Although he was denied a ticket in the 2019 assembly polls, he was later promoted to the national level within the party, and he is currently its general secretary.
Wadkute, once considered a close associate of Sharad Pawar in the undivided NCP, hails from the Hatkar community in the Marathwada region. He was previously elected to the legislative council with Pawar's backing before joining the BJP.
Ivnate served as the first mayor of Nagpur from a tribal background.
The Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena fielded party spokesperson Jyoti Waghmare amidst speculation that former Lok Sabha MP Rahul Shewale, a close aide of Shinde, would be nominated to the Upper House of Parliament. He had lost the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, 85, is set to secure a fresh Rajya Sabha term after the Congress on Wednesday declared support to him as the opposition bloc's candidate from Maharashtra for the lone Rajya Sabha seat that it can win out of the total seven.
The decision, announced by AICC general secretary Ramesh Chennithala on Wednesday, ended days of speculation about the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) candidate, as all three allies - Congress, NCP (SP), and Shiv Sena (UBT) - had staked claim to the lone seat the bloc can win, given their strength in the assembly.
Late Ajit Pawar's son, Parth Pawar, is in the fray from the ruling NCP. He had previously tried his electoral luck in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from the Maval constituency, but could not win.
He recently came into the spotlight after a controversial land deal in Pune's Mundhwa sparked outrage.
The Rs 300-crore deal to sell the 40-acre land parcel to Amadea Enterprises LLP, in which Parth holds 99 per cent stake, came under scrutiny after it emerged that the land belongs to the government, and the firm was exempted from paying stamp duty. The deal was subsequently cancelled.
Parth's mother, Sunetra Pawar, who became the deputy CM of Maharashtra following her husband Ajit Pawar's death in a plane crash on January 28, continues to be a Rajya Sabha member. She has not yet tendered her resignation from the Rajya Sabha membership.
The Rajya Sabha members from Maharashtra whose six-year term is ending in April are: Sharad Pawar, Ramdas Athawale, Fauzia Khan (NCP), Rajni Patil (Congress), Priyanka Chaturvedi (Shiv Sena-UBT), and Dhananjay Patil and Bhagwat Karad (both from BJP).
The Election Commission of India has announced elections to 37 Rajya Sabha seats across 10 states. Of these seats, 12 are currently held by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), while 25 are with opposition parties. Rajya Sabha members are elected by MLAs through a system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.
