Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram were among the six candidates elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra, while Industry Minister Subhash Desai, senior NCP leader Dhananjay Munde and former chief minister Narayan Rane of the Congress were among the 10 nominees who romped home in the State legislative Council without a contest.
The biennial elections to both the Rajya Sabha and Maharashtra legislative Council proved to be a walk over for the candidates in the fray. The deadline for withdrawal of nominations for the both the polls ended on Friday afternoon.
None of the six candidates pulled out of the fray of as many candidates, prompting the authorities to declare them elected unopposed. However, in the State legislative Council polls, the ruling BJP withdrew two of its candidates, leaving the fray to ten candidates for as many seats, a development resulted in all ten candidates being declared elected unopposed.
Apart from Goyal of the BJP and Chidambaram of the Congress, four others elected unopposed to the upper house of Parliament were: former Union minister Praful Patel of the NCP, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and Vikas Mahatme, both from the BJP, and Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut
Similarly in the legislative Council polls, the ten candidates who were elected unopposed were: Pravin Deherekar, R N Singh, Surjitsinh Thakur, Vinayak Mete, Sadabahu Khot, all from the BJP, Subhash Desai, Diwakar Raote, both from the Shiv Sena, Ramaraje Nimbalkar, Dhananjay Munde, both from the NCP and Narayan Rane of the Congress.
The BJP, which was facing considerable resentment within its ranks over the nomination of a new entrant to the party Pravin Dharekar who is facing charges of corruption in a co-operative bank fraud case, did not withdraw his candidature despite vehement clamour for the same in party quarters. Instead, the ruling party withdrew the candidatures of Prasad lad and Manoj Kotak, leading to the election of all ten candidates unopposed.