Preparations for repeating Assam in Maharashtra
The Bharatiya Janata Party is preparing to repeat the story of Assam in Maharashtra. Keep in mind that in March, elections were held for two Rajya Sabha seats in Assam and both the seats were won by the BJP. Despite having numbers, the Congress candidate lost the election. There was also a lot of dispute between the Congress and its ally AIUDF regarding this. In that election, nine MLAs of the opposition coalition did cross-voting. Similar game can happen in Maharashtra this time. The Bharatiya Janata Party is trying to save its three seats falling vacant in the state. Keep in mind that six seats are falling vacant in Maharashtra, out of which three are from the BJP.
Leaders of the House in Rajya Sabha and Union Ministers Piyush Goyal, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and Vikas Mahatme are retiring. According to the maths of this time, BJP is getting two seats easily. In the assembly, the BJP and its allies have 113 numbers in the BJP. This time 41 votes are needed to win a seat in the 288-member assembly. In this sense, after winning two seats, the BJP is left with 31 votes. He will have to arrange for 10 extra votes to win the third seat. Others have five seats but two of them belong to Owaisi’s party MIM and one to CPM. MNS and Swabhiman Paksha have two seats, which can go with the BJP. Still BJP needs eight votes.
On the other hand the Maha Vikas Aghadi government of Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress has 169 MLAs. In this sense, they have enough numbers to win four seats. But apart from the three big parties of the alliance, 16 MLAs are from smaller parties or are independents. BJP is preparing to make a dent in them. There is also a plan to get some of the Congress MLAs to cross-voting. Government leaders, ministers are apprehensive about this. All the three parties of the alliance have to get one seat each. If Shiv Sena contests the fourth seat, then it will have to manage and if all the three parties together field someone as an independent, then everyone will have to manage together.