Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 9L The ruling three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) in Maharashtra is set to lose two crucial votes in the elections to the Rajya Sabha on Friday as a special court on Thursday rejected the applications of the two arrested Nationalist Congress Party members and former ministers Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh for permission to visit the state Assembly to cast their votes.
Malik and Deshmukh, who are both MLAs, had sought to be escorted to the Vidhan Sabha at their own expense for a few hours to vote in the elections to six seats from Maharashtra.
The two are in judicial custody in connection with two separate cases filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). After hearing extensive arguments put forward by all the parties, the court refused the temporary bail to Malik and Deshmukh.
The court’s ruling went in favour of the central agencies who had strongly opposed the temporary bail pleas of the two MLAs pointing out that “prisoners do not have voting rights.”
“It is pertinent to mention that prisoners do not have voting rights under the Representation of the People Act, 1951. The right to vote is a statutory right created under Section 62 of the Act and the law is settled that the ‘right to vote being a statutory right is subject to the restrictions prescribed in the Act’,” the ED reply stated.
Deshmukh is lodged in Arthur Road Jail in connection with the money laundering case filed by the ED alleging that bribes were taken from bar and restaurant owners at his instructions and the money was laundered through a trust controlled by his family. He has been in prison since last November. Bottom of Form
Malik was arrested in February on allegations of money laundering in connection with a property in Kurla. He is admitted in a private hospital on orders of the court.
Maharashtra will witness a contest in the Rajya Sabha polls after more than two decades, as there are seven candidates in fray for the six seats. The MVA head Shiv Sena, which is certain to get one set has fielded two candidates, its allies NCP and Congress have pitched one candidate each, while the opposition BJP clear to get two seats as nominated three candidates.
With each candidate requiring 42 first preference votes to get elected, the ruling MVA coalition comprising the Shiv Sena (with 56 seats in the Legislative Assembly), NCP (53 seats), and Congress (44 seats) is set to secure three of the six Upper House berths being contested. The BJP numerically the single largest party in the 288-member state Assembly with 106 members, is certain to get two seats but has fielded three candidates. For the sixth seat, the MVA would need 17 votes from other parties while the BJP would need 20 if their respective flocks stayed intact.
The Shiv Sena, despite having the legislative strength to win one seat, has announced a candidate for another seat- local Kolhapur politician Sanjay Pawar. This seat was initially to be contested by Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati — an influential Maratha community leader and a direct descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji —as an independent candidate, but the Shiv Sena soon staked its claim to the seat.
The BJP in addition to its two regular candidates, the union minister Pixyish Goyal and the former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, has fielded Dhananjay Mahadik as its third candidate raising the fear of poaching from other parties.
Of the 57 seats across 15 states for which the polling is scheduled to be held on Friday, 41 candidates will face no contest and are expected to be declared elected unopposed, while contest for the remaining 16 seats are hotting up in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Haryana.
The race for the biennial polls to the upper house in the four states intensified with the contesting parties fielding more candidates than the number of seats available raising the allegations of horse trading and poaching from each other’s ranks. In Rajasthan, the ruling Congress wanted to register an FIR against the media baron Subhash Chandra fielded as an independent backed by the BJP.
As per the present strength of the respective parties in the Rajya Sabha, the ruling BJP has 95 members in the 245-member Upper House. The Congress (INC) holds the second-highest number of seats at 29, followed by the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) at 13, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) at 10, and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) at eight each.
Notably, while its current tally is 95, the BJP had reached a tally of 100 in the Rajya Sabha last month, after winning three seats in the North East. It was the first time since 1988 that a ruling party touched this figure in the Upper House. The tally came down to 95 in early May as the terms of five of its MPs ended leading to their retirement.
Out of the 57 seats in the current round, 11 are in Uttar Pradesh; six seats each from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu; five from Bihar; four each from Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka; three each from Madhya Pradesh and Odisha; two each from Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Punjab, and Haryana; and one from Uttarakhand.
Of the retiring members, from the BJP would be 24, nine were Congress seats, four held by the Samajwadi Party (SP); three each by the BJD, DMK and AIADMK; two each by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP); and one each by the Shiv Sena, Janata Dal (United), Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and by an independent MP.
Of the BJP’s 24 seats, it is likely to retain only 20 seats in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls, potentially bringing its current total of 95 members down to 91. Retiring members include Kapil Sibal, Congress leaders Vivek Tankha, Jairam Ramesh and P. Chidambaram, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, BJP MPs Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Vijay Sahasrabudde and Syed Zafar Islam, and DMK’s T.K.S. Elangovan and R.S. Bharathi. Some of these members will be seeking fresh terms this election.