Mumbai: The Election Commission has decided to hold the election to Maharashtra Legislative Council before May 21.
This comes as a huge sigh of relief to Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, who has been hoping to get elected or nominated to the Council to save his post as CM.
On Thursday, Governor of Maharashtra Bhagat Singh Koshyari wrote to the EC stating that the polls must be conducted for the nine vacant seats in the council at the earliest.
This move of the Governor too comes soon after Thackeray is said to have rung up PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah and reportedly discussed ‘polls’ to council.
It may be recalled that Uddhav had sent two reminders to the Governor- one on April 11 and the other o n April 27, asking him about his nomination to the council.
The Governor reportedly had not responded to both the reminders, which had forced the Shiv Sena to allege that the BJP was pulling strings.
Thackeray, who has never contested any polls, became the CM after long drawn political drama in Maharashtra.
In turn of events, Sena broke all ties with their longstanding partner BJP and turned to the NCP and the Congress to form the government.
As per rules, Thackeray should get elected to either of the houses within six months of assuming charge as the CM and accordingly, his six month period ends on May 28. If he fails to get get elected, then he has to quit.
With the lockdown in place and the polls being completely ruled out, the only option left before Thackeray was to turn to the Governor.
However, the decision of the EC to conduct polls has come has a huge relief to Thackeray.
