Rajanitai Patil of the Congress elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra

@the_news_21

Mumbai: Senior Congresswoman Rajanitai Patil was elected unopposed in the by-election to the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Maharashtra on Monday. The lone Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rival Sanjay Upadhyay withdrew his nomination papers leaving only Patil in the fray. The official announcement to this effect shall be made by the Election Commission of India (ECI) soon.

By-election to the seat was necessitated due to the tragic demise of sitting Congress Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Satav due to Covid-19 on May 16, 2021. Although his wife Dr Pradnya Satav had thrown her hat in the poll ring, the Congress high command chose experience and regional representation into the equation. Late Rajeev Satav (Hingoli) and Rajanitai Patil (Beed) hail from Marathwada region of the state.

In a statement issued here earlier in the day, state BJP president Chandrakant Patil announced the withdrawal of Sanjay Upadhyay’s candidature. He said that following the courtesy visit from Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president Nana Patole and Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat who made the request to Leader of Opposition in Legislative Assembly, Devendra Fadnavis, Patil held consultations with the party core committee members.

Following with the decision was made to withdraw the BJP general secretary Sanjay Upadhyay’s candidature. In the numbers game the BJP had simply no chance to get its candidate elected. The BJP has 106 MLAs in the lower house and in addition support of 10 more MLAs from smaller parties and Independents in the Legislative Assembly. Whereas, the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) enjoys the support of more than 170 odd MLAs. The quota required by the candidate to win the election was 145 votes. Moreover, the voting in this election was by open ballot.

There were two other Independent candidates – Nathu M Lokhande and Prabhakar D Janwalkar. However, their candidatures were rejected at the stage of scrutiny as their forms did not contain a list of candidate proposers or the affidavit.

Late Rajeev Satav was elected to the Rajya Sabha on April 3, 2020 and his term was supposed to expire on April 2, 2026. Rajanitai Patil will now get the reminder of the five years, eight-month term. Rajanitai Patil was the member of Rajya Sabha till 2018.