Council polls: Sena candidate withdraws from race

Shiv Sena candidate Rahul Narvekar today withdrew from the biennial Legislative Council elections in Maharashtra, paving way for the rest of the candidates to be elected unopposed.
Narvekar visited the election office at Vidhan Bhavan and gave the letter of withdrawal of his candidature.
Today is the last day for withdrawal of nominations. The election for the nine seats of the Upper House of the state Legislature is scheduled to be held on March 20.
Chandrakant Suryavanshi, Haribhau Rathod and Shivajirao Deshmukh (Congress), Anand Thakur, Kiran Pawaskar and Hemant Takle (NCP), Vinod Tawde and Pandurang Phundkar (BJP) and Neelam Gorhe (Shiv Sena) are all now set to be elected unopposed.

The 287 elected MLAs and one nominated member form the electoral college for elections.
With quota for winning candidate being 29, Shiv Sena with 45 MLAs fell short of numbers to get both its candidates elected.
The strength of various political parties in the Legislative Assembly is: Congress-81, NCP-62, BJP-46, Shiv Sena-45, MNS-12, PWP-4, SP-3, Jan Surajya Shakti, Bahujan Vikas Agadhi two each, Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh, Lok Sangram, Rashtriya Samaj Party, Swabhimani Party one each and 24 independents.