Nagpur (Maharashtra) [India], December 18 : Bharatiya Janata Party's Member of Legislative Council in Maharashtra, Ram Shinde on Wednesday filed his nomination for the election of the Council's Chairperson.
The election for the Chairperson's post is scheduled to be held on December 19.
The MLC filed his nomination in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar. Ministers Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Chandrakant Dada Patil, Uday Samant and Jaykumar Rawal were present at Vidhan Bhavan, Nagpur.
The official account of the Maharashtra CM posted about the nomination on X, and showed the leaders present congratulating Shinde on the nomination.
https://x.com/CMOMaharashtra/status/1869274598770110965Earlier, in Ram Shinde's own account, he thanked various party leaders both at the national level and state level to consider him for the post.
"I sincerely thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Home Minister of the country, Amit Shah, the National President of the Bharatiya Janata Party, J P Nadda Ji, the Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, BJP State President Chandrashekhar Bawankule as well as all the leaders of NDA and Mahayuti," Shinde said in his post on X.
The post of the chairperson has been vacant since 2022, after Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar term ended. Shiv Sena's Neelam Gorhe has taken additional charge of the official duties to be acting chairperson since then.
Earlier on December 9, Rahul Narwekar was elected unopposed as the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. If Shinde wins this election, BJP will have both the positions with them.
Reportedly, Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena had asked for certain important positions, however, as BJP has the highest number of seats in the council, they have nominated a person from their own party.
Shinde has been previously elected from Karjat Jamkhed constituency in 2014 to the state assembly. In 2019, he was defeated by Rohit Pawar, Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP-SP) leader and Sharad Pawar's grandnephew.
Currently, out of the 78 total seats in the Council, 26 seats are vacant. BJP has 19 members, while NCP (Ajit Pawar) has 7 and Shinde Sena has 6, while also being supported by 3 independents, bringing Mahayuti's total strength to be 35.
The total strength of Maha Vikas Agadhi is 17, with Shiv Sena (UBT) having 7 members, Congress 7 and NCP (SP) having 3.