Mumbai: The June 15 by-election for Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra is all set to witness a tussle between the two ruling coalition partners - Congress and NCP - as the third candidate, Sambhaji Pawar (BJP) retired from the contest on the last day of withdrawal on Thursday.
The Congress has fielded its candidate, former MLA Avinash Pande, against eminent industrialist Rahul Bajaj, supported by NCP, Shiv Sena and BJP.
The election will be held on June 15 from 0900 hrs to 1600 hrs and the counting will be held at 1700 hrs.
Interestingly, NCP is also a part of the UPA Government at the Centre with its three Ministers.
A house of 289 members of Legislative Assembly will elect the member of Upper House of Parliament on the seat, which fell vacant due to the death of former BJP General Secretary, Pramod Mahajan on May 3.
The party-wise strength in the House is as follows: Congress - 73, NCP - 71, Shiv Sena - 58, BJP – 54, PWP - 2, CPM - 3 and JSS - 4, while BBM, RPI, Swatantra Bharat Party and ABS have one member each.
There are 19 independents and one nominated member. Congress has got the support of three CPI (M) legislators apart from 12 independents, which makes the total strength of Congress supporters 88.
On the other hand, the strength of NCP, Shiv Sena and BJP totals 183 and with support from the splinter outfits supporting the three groups, it reaches 200.
In this situation, if Congress candidate banks upon the cross voting of 20 legislators, which did take place at the time of recently concluded biennial elections, Pande does not stand any chance to come close to Bajaj.
When contacted, Pande said the statistics is before everybody but there is no question about his withdrawal from the contest.
The NCP is maintaining that since the Congress did not accept two proposals given by NCP about the fourth Legislative Council seat of either giving it to NCP or to PWP, so the party decided to support Bajaj.
On the other hand, Congress' efforts to woo NCP to withdraw support to Bajaj failed.
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