MUMBAI: The Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) has decided to act against party MLAs who cross-voted in the biennial Maharashtra Legislative Council polls, facilitating a comfortable win for all nine Mahayuti candidates in fray. MPCC president Nana Patole told TOI the party has identified the ‘traitors’ who supported BJP and NCP’s Ajit Pawar faction and a report listing their names has been sent to the party high command.
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Saturday claimed that the 7 MLAs of Congress that cross-voted on Friday were the same MLAs who had cross-voted in 2022, leading to the defeat of then Congress nominee Chandrakant Handore. Raut said state Congress chief Nana Patole has himself admitted that 7 MLAs of Congress cross-voted.
“These 7 votes of Congress are not with Congress for the last two years. They are only together on paper. Raut claimed that the price going for MLAs’ votes was in the range of Rs 20 to Rs 25 crore. Moreover, not only money, some MLAs were also given two acres of land,” Raut alleged.
Elaborating on how the disloyal MLAs were identified, Patole said the MPCC provided slips to all legislators in English, Hindi with Roman numerals, instructing them to vote for MVA candidates. “We have now identified them,” Patole said.
Raut said “this was not simple. It was not easy. It was money. This election was money power versus people power. We contested the election with the strength of the votes we had,” Raut said.
“MVA got both its candidates elected. Congress had sufficient numbers. They elected their candidate. Shiv Sena (UBT) did not have the strength in numbers. Sena (UBT) had 15 votes of its own. Despite this, Milind Narvekar won. We elected our candidate with the help of Congress. If a little math went correctly, Jayant Patil would have won with second or third preference votes. He couldn’t do the math. Votes split in this, now Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar are patting each other, it is ridiculous,” Raut said.
Leader of opposition Vijay Wadettiwar also said that the party contested the legislative council elections to identify these disloyal MLAs. “A comprehensive report has been submitted to the party leadership, and appropriate action will be taken against the guilty. Now, the party can clean out the disloyal elements before the assembly polls,” he remarked.