Guv Krishna's resignation puts Council nominations on backseat

Mumbai, Mar 5 (UNI) With Maharashtra Governor S M Krishna resigning from the post, the ruling Democratic Front government in the state was reduced to a minority in the Legislative Council during the Budget session, thereby delaying the filing of nomination.

The session of the state Legislature will commence from March 10 with the customary address to the joint session by the Governor.

By then, if nominations for 12 seats were not filled, the ruling Congress-NCP coalition government will be reduced to a minority.

The seats fell vacant on February 20 following the retirement of 12 members after completion of their six-year term. The government is yet to finalise the names of the candidates to be nominated by the Governor.

The resignation of Mr Krishna to re-enter active politics in his home state of Karnataka, might further delay the process as it might take some time before the nominations are carried through as the government had to wait for Mr Krishna's successor.

Official sources indicated that the government was in the advanced stages of selecting persons to be nominated to the Upper House. The NCP had already given its list of six names to Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, while according to Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Prabha Rau as many as 150 recommendations have been received by the state unit.

The nominated members of the Council who have retired at the end of their six-year term on February 20 include Dr M A Aziz, Sudha Joshi, Ramesh Nikose, Dhondiram Rathod, Dhanaji Sathe, (all Congress), Jitendra Awhad, Gurunath Kulkarni, Prof Fauzia Khan, Vasant Chavan, Jagannath Shewale and Girish Gandhi (all NCP).

The other nominated member Major Sudhir Sawant (Congress) resigned from the House a few weeks ago.

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