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Congress challenges Sena-BJP's might in RS elections

The presence of two Independent candidates -- former minister of state for railways Suresh Kalmadi and regional press baron Vijay Darda -- supported by the Sena-BJP and the Congress respectively, has added colour to the biennial election to the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra. The election, due on Thursday, June 18, will fill six vacancies from the state.

Kalmadi and Darda are wrestling it out for the sixth seat while the victory of the other five candidates -- three from the ruling Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance and two from the Congress -- are a foregone conclusion, on the basis of the respective strength of the political parties in the legislative assembly, which is the electoral college.

Both Kalmadi and Darda, son of the late Congress strongman Jawaharlal Darda, are pinning their hopes on the support of the 44 Independent MLAs who are now divided into two rival groups, with more than half of them wanting to rejoin the Congress.

The two official candidates fielded by the Congress are deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha Najma Heptulla and former Union cabinet secretary R D Pradhan. The BJP's sole candidate in the fray is its high profile leader Pramod Mahajan, who quit the post of political advisor to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee before filing his nomination. The Sena's two candidates include journalist Pritish Nandy and sitting Rajya Sabha member Satish Pradhan.

Candidates need 41 votes to win the election.

The Samajwadi Party has committed the votes of its four members to the Congress which, with 78 members in the 288-member state legislative assembly, was short of exactly the same number to ensure the fixed quota votes for its two candidates.

Besides, the Congress is enthused by the overtures made by a faction of the 44 Independent MLAs to rejoin it. On the basis of this and its confidence to secure the support of another 25 votes available with the non-Sena and non-BJP parties, the Congress has chosen to extend moral support to Darda. The political craftsman of the party and leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sharad Pawar, is personally supervising the strategy to secure an additional seat by helping Darda against Kalmadi. The latter is a former disciple of Pawar, and the two fell out on the eve of the general election.

The Sena on its own is seven short of the required 82 votes for the normal victory of both its candidates. It has only 75 members in the assembly and is depending on the 25 surplus votes of the BJP which has 66 members in the assembly. The BJP's surplus is also proposed to be transferred to Kalmadi by the ruling alliance.

Both Kalmadi and Darda are leaving no stone unturned to woo the Independent MLAs. They are also basing their calculations on what they claim is the likelihood of cross-voting by disgruntled elements from the Sena and the BJP, particularly from among the supporters of the three ministers dropped from the ministry recently.

Apart from the SP, of the other non-Sena, non-BJP parties in the assembly, the Janata Dal has ten members, the Peasants and Workers Party six, the Communist Party of India-Marxist three and the Maharashtra Vikas Congress and Nag Vidarbha Andolan Samiti one each.

The biennial election has been caused on account of the retirement of four Congress members and one each of the Sena and the BJP from the Rajya Sabha. The retiring members are Shrikant Jichkar, Najma Heptulla, Sushilkumar Shinde, Shivajirao Giridhar Patil (all Congress), Satish Pradhan (Shiv Sena) and Ram Kapse (BJP). Among the retiring RS members from the state, only Heptulla and Satish Pradhan have been renominated, while Shinde has been elected to the Lok Sabha.

Along with the Rajya Sabha, biennial elections are also being held simultaneously on the same day for filling ten vacancies in the state legislative council, which has also generated an equal amount of interest due to the presence of a Shiv Sena leader and a retiring Congress MLC entering the fray as Independents, in addition to the official candidates of the two parties.

There are thus 13 candidates in the fray for the ten seats. They include the Sena ( two), the BJP (three), the Congress-RPI alliance (three), Janata Dal one and IIndependents four. Among the Independent candidates are Sena leader Kanhaiyalal Gidwani and former minister of state for home Arun Mehta who is also among the eight retiring Congress MLCs.

The five Sena-BJP candidates include deputy chairman of the legislative council N S Pharande, Minister of State for Co-operation Pratapsinh Mohite Patil, Minister of State for Social Welfare Vijay Girkar (all three BJP), Transport and Self-Employment Minister Diwakar Raote and Vijay Waddetiwar (both Sena).

The Congress has fielded its state president Ranjit Deshmukh and its spokesman and former minister Vasant Chavan, the lone sitting MLC to be renominated. Makhram Pawar is the candidate of the Congress's ally, the Bahujan Mahasangh, an RPI faction.

Gangadhar Patne is the lone Janata Dal candidate in the fray, and the party is confident of ensuring his victory with the support of its partners in the Progressive Democratic Front including the CPI-M, PWP and some Independents. The Sena-BJP combine, with a combined strength of 141 MLAs in the legislative assembly, have six surplus votes and are placed comfortably to ensure the victory of their five official candidates. The Congress, with 78 members in the assembly, will have no difficulty in ensuring the victory of all three Congress-RPI alliance candidates.

The Sena says it allowed Gidwani to enter the fray since he believed he could win the poll with surplus votes from the Sena-BJP and from among the group of 44 independent MLAs who are supporting the alliance government.

But this is not something that the BJP is willing to buy, since it fears that Gidwani will eat into the same surplus that it was eyeing in order to get all its three candidates elected. With just 66 members, it needs the same votes that Gidwani is trying to corner.

Sensing the BJP's resentment, Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Sunday announced that he would order Gidwani to withdraw from the race if his presence was the cause of discord between the two alliance partners. But the point remains that barring cross-voting, the BJP could secure the victory of all its three candidates with the combined strength of the ruling alliance, irrespective of Gidwani's presence.

Similarly Mehta, who had to resign from the party following a storm over his candidature, also stands a fairly good chance of victory, according to MPCC president Ranjit Deshmukh who claims that Mehta may get the votes of Independents and of disgruntled members of the alliance government.

In the final analysis, the contest between Gidwani and Mehta would put to test the extent of the invincibility of the main political players in the state assembly.

UNI

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