Mumbai: The Shiv Sena on Thursday turned out to be the only gainer in the legislative council polls in Maharashtra, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) maintaining its strength and tally of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress declining.

Polling for six legislative council seats was held on 21 May and the votes were counted on Thursday. Results were announced for five of the seats with the state electoral officer deferring the counting of votes for the Osmanabad-Latur-Beed seat in Marathwada pending an appeal filed in the Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court.

The Shiv Sena’s tally in the council rose from nine to 11. Its nominees Narendra Darade and Viplav Bajoria won the Nashik and Parbhani-Hingoli seats, respectively, while its candidate lost the Raigad-Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg seat to NCP nominee Aniket Tatkare, the son of the party general secretary Sunil Tatkare.

BJP members voted for Tatkare, ensuring the defeat of the Shiv Sena candidate. Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray reacted sarcastically to the outcome, expressing hope that with the BJP helping the “irrigation-scam accused" Sunil Tatkare’s son, people in Maharashtra had reason to expect a through probe into the scam.

However, the BJP’s plan to ensure Shiv Sena’s defeat in Nashik by voting for the NCP nominee came a cropper as Darade won by 193 votes.

BJP nominees Pravin Pote and Ramdas Ambatkar won the Amravati and Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli seats, respectively, helping the party maintain its strength of 18 in the legislative council.

The tally of the NCP came down from 23 to 21, despite Tatkare’s victory. However, NCP retained its position as the single-largest party in the 78-member legislative council.

The strength of the Congress, which lost all the three seats it contested, came down from 19 to 18.

For the Osmanabad-Latur-Beed seat, for which counting was deferred, the BJP has fielded Suresh Dhas against an independent Ashok Jagdale who is backed by the NCP.

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