MUMBAI: As nominations for the biennial elections of the Maharashtra State Legislative Council scheduled on May 10, 2026, lobbying has begun within all prominent political parties.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced the biennial elections of the Maharashtra state legislative council for ten seats.
Out of the total ten MLC seats, the single largest ruling party, the BJP, will get six MLC seats. There are a total of 12 aspirants within the BJP for these six MLC seats that include Dr Archana Patil Chakorkar, Pranya Satava, Madhavi Naik, Rajesh Pandey, Ranjeet Singh Naik Nimbalkar, Ram Satpute, Sanjay Kaka Patil, Sanjay Kenekar, Dadarao Keche, Sanjay Bhende, Dyashankar Tiwari, and Sandeep Joshi.
The BJP state parliamentary committee has also called a meeting on Wednesday to discuss and finalise the names for the MLC election.
Sources said that Pranya Satava's name has been almost finalised as she resigned from the Congress MLC and joined the BJP recently, so her seat will be compensated, while the other five names will be chosen after discussions.
"The regional balance, besides the aspirant person's utility and reward for his or her commitments, loyalty, contribution, and caste factor will play a major role in the MLC nomination by the BJP. There are many names recommended by local party leaders, but the final decision will be taken by the parliamentary committee only," said a senior BJP leader who requested anonymity.
"Besides, there are many BJP leaders who were given the promise of MLC in return for not contesting the General and Assembly elections. Now, this list is also big. So, it's a big challenge for the party leadership," said a senior BJP leader who requested anonymity.
Nine seats of the MLC were vacated after the expiration of their terms, while MLC Pranya Satava's seat was vacated after an abrupt resignation. Satav is the wife of the late Rajeev Satav, a senior Congress leader.
As per the present state assembly’s strength, to get one MLC seat to win, the respective candidate needs the minimum 29 votes’ quota, while for the bypolls for one MLC, they need to ensure more than 51 per cent votes against the total cast votes. The sitting MLAs of the state assembly are eligible voters for the MLC elections.
On the other hand, Shiv Sena and NCP, the alliance partners, will get the two and one MLC seat respectively, while Maha Vikas Aghadi can elect only one MLC seat. Maharashtra Congress president Harshvardhan Sapkal said that if Uddhav Thackeray again wants to go to the upper house, then they are ready to extend support.
“If Thackeray is not interested, then this seat should be given to the Congress party as they sacrificed their Lok Sabha seat to the NCP SP leader Sharad Pawar,” Sapkal said.
NCP SP also extended support to Uddhav Thackeray’s nomination for the MLC seat.