Shiv Sena nominates Sanjay Raut for Rajya Sabha election

Mumbai: Shiv Sena on Tuesday nominated its leader Sanjay Raut as a candidate for the Rajya Sabha election slated for June 11.
Sena ministers in the BJP-led government in Maharashtra, Subhash Desai and Diwakar Raote will be the party's nominees for the Legislative Council elections scheduled on June 10, the party announced here.

Raut has been a party MP for two consecutive terms and his current term ends on July 4, 2016.

In Maharashtra, six RS seats are up for grabs while there are 10 vacancies in the Legislative Council.

Besides Raut, the other retiring Rajya Sabha MPs from Maharashtra are Ishwarlal Jain and Praful Patel (NCP), Vijay Darda and Avinash Pande (Congress), and Union minister Piyush Goyal (BJP).

The biennial elections to 57 seats in Rajya Sabha are necessitated as 55 members from 15 states are retiring between June and August.

As per the arithmetic, the BJP and Shiv Sena have a chance to wrest at least one seat each from Congress and NCP given their present strength in the Legislative Assembly.

The number of votes required to win election by a candidate is pegged at 42.

However, considering their strength in the Lower House, it seems unlikely that Congress or NCP will field more than one candidate.

The combined strength of Sena (63) and BJP (122) in the House is 185 while that of Congress and NCP at 42 and 41, respectively.

Rajya Sabha polls are held through open ballot wherein the members of the Legislative Assembly (excluding nominated MLA) have to display the preference of voting to the party whip.

The elections to 10 seats of Maharashtra Legislative Council will be held on June 10, in which, as per the given scenario, five seats are expected to be won by BJP, three by Congress and NCP collectively, and two by Shiv Sena.