BJP fields Pankaja Munde, four others for Maharashtra council polls

Mumbai: Maharashtra BJP on Monday announced the candidatures of OBC leader and former minister Pankaja Munde and four others for the upcoming polls to the state legislative council.

The biennial elections for 11 seats of the Upper House of the state legislature will be held on July 12.

The party, in a release, named Munde, former MLA Yogesh Tilekar, Parinay Phuke, Amit Gorkhe and Sadabhau Khot as its candidates.

Munde, the party's national general secretary, lost the state assembly polls in 2019 and the recently held Lok Sabha elections from Beed against NCP (SP)'s Bajrang Sonawane.

Among other candidates, Tilekar hails from Pune, Khot is from Sangli, and Gorkhe is a BJP functionary from Pimpri Chinchwad and belongs to the Matang community, one of the backward classes in the state.

Phuke is from Nagpur and known to be close to BJP leader and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

The six-year term in office of 11 MLCs, elected by the Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs), is due to end on July 27 on their retirement.

The biennial election to the upper house of the state legislature is being held just months ahead of assembly polls, which are due in October.

With 14 vacancies in the 288-member house, the electoral college is 274, and the quota for the winning candidate is 23.

The Ajit Pawar-led NCP has 41 MLAs, the Eknath Shinde-led Sena has 40, and the BJP has 103. The Congress has 37, Shiv Sena (UBT) has 13 and NCP (SP) has 15.