Nagpur: The elections for 11 state Assembly seats scheduled for Friday have become a political thriller with suspense as to who will be the victim. This is because with 12 candidates vying for the 11 seats, one candidate will be left standing in a game of political musical chairs. The voters for this secret ballot are the state assembly members. As some state assembly members have been elected to the Lok Sabha, some have resigned or died and one has been disqualified, the number of voters is 274 (out of 288). To win, a candidate needs to meet the quota of 23 votes and political parties have to manage their funds there. The Indian National Congress has 37 votes but has fielded only one candidate, giving it an excess of 14 votes. Meanwhile, the BJP has fielded five candidates needing 115 votes but has only 105 state assembly members. Sources said the saffron party is hoping to get through the election with the support of independents. The voting pattern is further complicated due to the preferential voting (first and second preference of candidates) system. The trick lies in distributing the votes in such a way that each party ensures the victory of its own candidate. According to BJP sources, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been entrusted with the task of explaining the voting pattern to the Mahayuti assembly comprising BJP, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and NCP (Ajit Pawar) to ensure a specific quota of votes for each candidate. According to sources, Fadnavis will interact with the assembly members and explain how many votes should be allotted to each of the nine candidates of the Mahayuti. It will be interesting to see if Fadnavis can repeat his 2022 success in these elections, especially after the defeat of the BJP-led NDA in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Shinde has also convened a party meeting, which also included Minister Uday Samant and Parliamentary Secretary Bharat Gogawale. The developments in the MLC elections began with the surprise inclusion of former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray as the 12th candidate. Had Milind Narvekar withdrawn his candidacy, all 11 candidates would have won unopposed. Narvekar enjoys good rapport across party lines, including with his boss’s political rival, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Narvekar was recently seen meeting with legislators from other parties, including those with only two or three legislators, at Vidhan Bhavan. In any case, with the state assembly elections just a few months away, the party backing the losing candidate will face huge embarrassment. Also, the losing party will surely feel “betrayed” by its alliance partner if its candidate loses the election.
