Elections are to be held on a total of 56 Rajya Sabha seats in 15 states on 27 February. Six seats of Maharashtra are also included in this. The BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP alliance is expected to win five of these seats.
BJP has retained three of these seats because it has the numerical strength to elect three MPs, while one seat each has been allotted to the party of Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar.
BJP has planned to field its own fourth candidate on the sixth seat.
Actually, BJP wants to break the India Alliance, especially the Congress Party, by fielding a fourth candidate. BJP’s fourth candidate may lead to division among Congress MLAs and cross voting.
BJP hopes to win Lok Sabha electionboatBy doing this just before the elections, the morale of the opposition can be weakened. Congress leader Baba Siddiqui has already left the party and is set to join NCP.
However, his son Zeeshan Saddiqui is still the Congress MLA from Bandra West assembly constituency in Mumbai city. Meanwhile, another Congress MLA from Mumbai is also said to be in talks to leave the party.
It is noteworthy that last month, former Union Minister Milind Deora had also resigned from Congress and joined Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
According to a Congress leader, more than a dozen Congress MLAs are ‘unhappy’ with the stance of the party high command, ET reported.
BJP has its eyes on these MLAs. The Congress leader, on the condition of anonymity, said that many Congress MLAs are in touch with the BJP and if BJP fields a fourth candidate, it could lead to a split in the Congress and Congress MLAs could cross-vote.
Even in 2022, BJP had won three Rajya Sabha seats, while it had only two MLAs to elect. 10 days after that election, BJP had also managed to win five MLC seats, even though it had the numbers to elect only four MLCs.
Only after this there was a split in Shiv Sena and Eknath Shinde formed a new government with BJP.
Maharashtra Congress leaders then estimated that at least 7 MLAs had cross-voted for the BJP candidate in the MLC elections.