Maharashtra: MVA wins 4 of 5 Council seats, BJP loses in Nagpur

Mumbai: The one-year-old Shiv Sena-NCP- Congress government in Maharashtra got a shot in the arm on Friday as the ruling coalition won four of the five Legislative Council seats from the Graduates’ and Teachers’ quota.

In a setback for the BJP, which lost power in the state after Assembly elections last year, its candidate also lost in Nagpur, a bastion of the saffron party. The biennial elections to the upper house, held on December 1, were a sort of litmus test for the unlikely `Maha Vikas Aghadi’ (MVA) of the Shiv Sena and Congress-NCP which came to power after the Sena parted ways with the BJP.

The term of five sitting members had ended in July this year but the election was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The NCP’s Satish Chavan defeated the BJP’s Shirish Boralkar to win the Aurangabad Division Graduates’ constituency. In Nagpur Division Graduates’ seat, the Congress’s Abhijit Wanjari trounced the BJP’s Sandeep Joshi. In the past, this seat had been held by BJP stalwart and Union minister Nitin Gadkari.

In Pune Division Graduates’ seat, the NCP’s Arun Lad defeated Sangram Deshmukh of the BJP. In Pune Division Teachers’ constituency, Jayant Asgaonkar of the Congress trounced sitting MLC and Independent Dattatraya Sawant.

In Amravati Division Teachers’ constituency, Kiran Sarnaik (Independent) defeated sitting MLC and independent Shrikant Deshpande who contested onthe Shiv Sena ticket. Reacting to the results, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar said, “The results are a clear reflection of the MVA’s work in the last one year.” The MVA government led by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray assumed office on November 28 last year.