Voting for Maharashtra Legislative Council over; results awaited

Voting for the biennial elections to fill in 10 seats of Maharashtra Legislative Council is over with 288 MLAs casting their votes expect one.

The voting began at 0900 hours and the results are expected to be declared in the evening.
        
Ramchandra Ozare, a CPI(M) MLA did not vote for the polls while all other candidate voted in the afternoon. The 13 MLAs of MNS came last to vote in the Vidhan Bhavan shouting slogans of their leader Raj Thackeray.
        
The four MNS MLAs - Shishir Shinde, Ram Kadam, Ramesh Vanjale and Vasant Gite were given special permission to enter the premises of the Vidhan Bhavan to vote. They were suspended for four years for physically assaulting SP MLA Abu Azmi for taking oath in Hindi.

There are 11 candidates in the fray and Congress and NCP have fielded three each. While Shiv Sena and BJP have two candidates each. Vijay Sawant is contesting as an Independent backed by Congress.
        
In the 289 member Legislative Assembly, which is the electoral college for the elections, the Congress has 82 MLAs, NCP 62, BJP 46, Shiv Sena 45, MNS 13, PWP 4, Samajwadi Party 3, Jan Surajya Party 2, Bahujan Vikas Agadhi 2, Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh, CPM, Lok Sangram, Rashtriya Samaj Party, Swabhimani party one each, Independents 24 and nominated member one.

The quota for first preference votes is 26.28. The biennial elections are being held to fill in vacancies to be created by retirement of ten members on July 7.

Out of the ten outgoing MLCs, Shiv Sena has re-nominated its sitting MLCs Diwakar Raote and Anil Parab, Congress has re-nominated Sanjay Dutt.

The other candidates are Hussain Dalwai and Dipti Choudhary from Congress, Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar, Prakash Binsale and Vinayak Mete from NCP, Shobhatai Phadnvis and Dhananjay Munde from BJP.