In a huge reprieve to the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra, the Election Commission of India on Friday said that polls to fill the nine vacant seats of the Legislative Council will be held on Mat 21, a report in The Indian Express said. The decision was taken during a high-level meet at the Election Commission of India office in Delhi, a day after the Maharashtra Governor wrote a letter to the poll body, requesting to declare elections to the nine vacant seats of the Legislative Council at the earliest. The nine seats have been lying vacant since April 24.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav is not a member of either house of the state legislature and needs to get elected before May 27 to save his chair.

The poll body will said it will soon ask the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to appoint an officer to oversee whether the Council election process is compliant with the guidelines issued by the Centre under the Disaster Management Act. The ECI said it will also ask the Maharashtra government to depute an officer to check for compliance with the state’s health guidelines, the IE report said.

The state’s Chief Electoral Officer Baldev Harpal Singh will be the observer for the Council elections, an EC official told the daily.

Uddhav Thackeray, who heads an alliance government of the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress, took oath as the Chief Minister on November 28, 2019 and needs to get elected as a member of either house of the state legislature before May 27.

Notably, the ECI had withheld the election process for these nine seats including over three-dozen Rajya Sabha seats due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The state cabinet had twice last month recommended Uddhav’s nomination as one of the Governor’s nominees in the Legislative Council. The Governor’s delay in acting on the recommendations prompted Uddhav to call Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday to seek his help. Uddhav complained of deliberate attempts by the BJP through the Governor to destabilise his government. The Governor’s letter to EC urging polls at the earliest came a day after the CM’s SOS call to PM Modi.