Day after Uddhav’s call to PM, Guv asks EC to declare polls for 9 council seats

Mumbai, Apr 30: The Election Commission is likely to discuss on Friday demands for holding legislative council polls in Maharashtra which were deferred due to the spread of the coronavirus.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray who was sworn in on November 28 last year, has time till May 27 to get elected to the state legislature, failing which he will have to step down.

Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Thursday has requested the Election Commission of India to declare elections to the 9 vacant seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council "at the earliest."

In his letter, the Governor has stated that the Central Government has announced many relaxation measures regarding the enforcement of lockdown in the country. As such the elections to the council seats can be held with certain guidelines, he has said.

The letter comes a day after Thackeray spoke to Modi on phone and told him that attempts were being made to create political instability in the state, sources told PTI.

According to PTI sources, in the poll panel said though they have not received the communication of the governor so far, the issue could be discussed on Friday as all three ruling alliance partners in Maharashtra -- the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress -- have appealed to the EC to conduct the Legislative Council polls, saying social distancing and other precautions can be taken during the voting procedure.

Since the Raj Bhawan has written, the communication would also be on the Commission's table on Friday, the sources said.

Earlier, the state cabinet had recommended appointing the Shiv Sena chief as a member of the Legislative Council as a Governor's nominee, but there had been no progress on the proposal.

The Election Commission had deferred the elections to the nine legislative council seats that fell vacant on April 24 in view of the coronavirus pandemic.