Maha: Pawar's mediation paved way for unopposed Council polls?

The pulling out of two BJP nominees on the last day of the withdrawal of nominations for Maharashtra Legislative Council elections worked out in favour of as many candidates of NCP, underlining the bonhomie between the two parties.
According to a BJP leader, Prasad Lad (party's official nominee) and Manoj Kotak (an Independent backed by the BJP) withdrew after NCP chief Sharad Pawar's telephonic talk with his BJP counterpart Amit Shah.
Their withdrawal ensured that the remaining 10 candidates got elected to the Upper House unopposed without contest.
A total of 12 candidates, six them from BJP, had filed nomination papers for elections to 10 Legislative Council seats scheduled for June 10.

According to sources in the BJP, one of the reasons behind the withdrawal of Lad and Kotak was linked to the ongoing controversy surrounding Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse.
"There is a section of MLAs which supports Khadse and there was an apprehension within the party that this group could have rebelled, spelling trouble for the party," a BJP leader said.

Explaining the complex arithmetic, he said, "the BJP, besides fielding five candidates, had given tickets to two more candidates. The BJP needed 12 more votes for its fifth candidate to win and would have needed 27 more for its sixth candidate."

Among those who made it to the Council are: Sujit Singh Thakur, Pravin Darekar, R N Singh (all from BJP) and its allies Sadabhau Khot and Vinayak Mete, who were also fielded by the party.
Leader of Opposition in the Council, Dhananjay Munde and Council Chairman Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar, both from NCP, Shiv Sena ministers Diwakar Raote and Subhash Desai, and Narayan Rane (Congress) also won.
The BJP leader said, "the NCP chief had assured Nimbalkar and Munde of safe passage to the legislative council by speaking to Amit Shah. In the end, (chief minister Devendra) Fadnavis on the instructions of party president asked Lad and Kotak to withdraw from the fray."

According to a senior NCP leader, the cross-voting by the MLAs of Congress and NCP was a one scenario, while another was the likelihood of cross-voting of BJP MLAs against Lad.
"If the BJP leadership was toying with the idea of giving a low quota of votes for its candidates and relying on surplus second preference votes from the Sena to see their candidates sail through, the opposition too had its counter strategy ready by giving more quota of votes to their candidates," the NCP leader said.
"However, the Congress could have struggled to make the quota of votes, but still could have managed with help from allies," he added.

The NCP leader said the BJP's strategy could have boomeranged if their own MLAs would have voted against Lad.
Though Kotak declined to comment on his withdrawal, Lad tweeted: "it is about the longer game and not short races.