Uddhav survives few hiccups, finally makes it to Council unopposed and retains his CMs chair

BJP replaces its official candidate, four candidates withdraw from the poll fray as lone Independent candidate fails to muster support

Mumbai: Notwithstanding continuing last minute political drama, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is all set to be declared elected unopposed to the Legislative Council and thereby save his chief ministers chair. At the last minute, according to sources the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reportedly replaced one of its official candidates and made one dummy candidate to withdraw from the poll fray. Likewise, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) too is reported to have withdrawn two of its dummy candidates. While the nomination papers of the lone Independent candidate was rejected on Tuesday at the time of scrutiny as it did not have any names and signatures of proposers and seconders.

As per sources, unofficially nine candidates have been left in the fray. These include – Gopichand Padalkar, Pravin Datke, Ranjitsinha Vijaysinha Mohite-Patil and Ramesh K Karad (all BJP), Uddhav Thackeray and Dr Neelam Gorhe (both Shiv Sena), Shashikant Shinde and Amol Mitkari (both NCP) and Rajesh D Rathod (Congress).

The names of the elected candidates, declared as elected unopposed will be announced on May 14, when officially the other four candidates in the fray withdraw their candidatures from the poll fray for the May 21 biennial elections to the 9 vacancies of Elected by MLAs constituency.

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According to sources in the Election Commission of India (ECI) Tuesday was the day for scrutiny of the nomination papers. In this process the nomination paper of Shehbaj Alauddin Rathod from Mumbadevi, Mumbai who had filed the nomination papers as an Independent candidate, was rejected as it did not contain the names and signatures of 10 proposers and seconders. Moreover, as per his election affidavit, he has cases and FIRs registered against him under sections like 420, 422, 108 and 34.

Technically and officially as of May 12 there are 13 candidates declared as validly nominated candidates in the poll fray. As per the election schedule announced by the ECI, the deadline for withdrawal of nomination papers is May 14.

According to sources, at the last minute the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) replaced its official candidate Dr Ajeet Gopchade and made its dummy candidate Ramesh K Karad as its official candidate, along with other official candidates – Gopichand Padalkar, Pravin Datke and Ranjitsinha Vijaysinha Mohite-Patil. The BJP is also reported to have made its dummy candidate Sanjay Lele withdraw from the poll fray.

Besides this, the NCP is reported to have withdrawn its dummy candidates – Kiran Pawaskar and Shivajirao Garje from the poll fray, while retaining its official candidate’s Shashikant Shinde and Amol Mitkari. The Shiv Sena continued to retain its two official candidate’s – Uddhav Thackeray and Dr Neelam Gorhe. Likewise, the Congress too has maintained its official candidate Rajesh D Rathod in the poll fray.