Maharashtra Governor allows withdrawal of MVA’s list of 12 MLC nominees as sought by Shinde govt

National

On Monday, Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari authorised the withdrawal of a list of 12 candidates provided by the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) administration led by Uddhav Thackeray for nomination to legislative council (MLC) seats in 2020.

The Governor’s action follows Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s letter to the Governor requesting the resignation of MLCs. Previously, the MVA administration and the then-opposition BJP had a heated exchange of words, with MVA ladders saying that the Governor was withholding the names at the BJP’s request.

The Governor retained the names suggested by MVA for more than two years without nominating them to the Legislative Council.

In a letter to Governor Koshyari, the current Maharashtra administration, led by Eknath Shinde, has requested that the previous MVA government retract the list of 12 names for MLC nominations provided in 2020.

While removing the names, the government told Raj Bhavan that it will provide a new list of MLC nominees.

The decision comes two months after Shinde and other Sena MLAs revolted from Thackeray in order to destabilise the MVA administration and form a coalition with the BJP.

Former CM Uddhav Thackeray had in 2020, submitted to the Governor a list of 12 eminent persons for nomination to the Legislative Council. However, Koshyari had neither rejected nor accepted the nominations.

The list included the names of actor Urmila Matondkar, Vijay Karanjkar, Nitin Bangude-Patil and Chandrakant Raghuvanshi from the Shiv Sena; farmers’ leader Raju Shetti, former minister Eknath Khadse, Yashpal Bhinge and folk singer Anand Shinde from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP); and Rajni Patil, Sachin Sawant, Anniruddha Vankar and Muzaffar Hussain from the Congress.

When there was no answer, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was launched in this respect before the Bombay High Court, but the court declined to issue any directive to the Governor.

The MVA leaders also sought the issue to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attention, stating that the Governor was purposefully not selecting MLCs.