Maharashtra: Reprieve for Uddhav Thackeray after SOS call to PM Modi, but battle to save CM chair may have only begun

Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has requested to the Election Commission to hold polls to the nine vacant seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council, ending the three-week suspense over Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s nomination to the upper house of the state legislature. This comes a day after Uddhav dialled Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought his intervention to prevent the state from plunging into a political crisis.

A statement from Raj Bhavan on Thursday evening said that Koshyari has requested the Commission to declare elections to the nine vacant seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council at the earliest. The nine seats have been lying vacant since April 24. In his letter to the EC, the Governor stated that the Centre has announced many relaxation measures regarding the enforcement of lockdown in the country. “As such the elections to the Council seats can be held with certain guidelines.”

The development has come as some relief to the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi government headed by Uddhav Thackeray since the Chief Minister is not a member of either house of the state legislature. Uddhav took oath as the Chief Minister on November 28, 2019 and he needs to get elected as a member of either house of the state legislature before May 27 to save his job.

However, the BJP may still hold the edge as Uddhav battles to save his chair. The 288 MLAs of the Maharashtra Assembly are the ones who will elect the new members of the legislative council. With BJP emerging as the single largest party in the Assembly elections, it is projected to easily win four of the nine seats while the Shiv Sena- NCP-Congress combine can secure five seats.

For Uddhav Thackeray, getting elected to one of these seats could be easy, as long as the elections are announced within the first week of May. If the BJP decides to field a candidate on the seat, the matter gets tricky for the incumbent CM. A contest on the seat would entail an election process of 21 days, which gets dangerously close to the May 27 deadline for Uddhav Thackeray. The ball thus has moved to the Election Commission’s court which would have to take a call on the matter soon.

The Election Commission had withheld the election process for these nine 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.

Meanwhile, senior BJP leader Uddhav’s predecessor Devendra Fadnavis has welcomed the Governor’s move. He said that this will prevent Maharashtra from going into instability in the testing times of coronavirus outbreak. “It will also uphold the values of our Constitution,” Fadnavis said in a series of tweets.

In his call with PM Modi, Uddhav had complained of attempts by the BJP to destabilise his government and requested his help citing the need for political stability during the coronavirus crisis in the state, the worst-hit in the country. The Shiv Sena had also highlighted Governor Koshiyari’s affiliation to the BJP to suggest that Uddhav’s nomination to the upper house of the state legislature was being deliberately scuttled to bring down his government.