Uncertainty over polls to 11 seats of Maha Legislative Council

Uncertainty hangs over the elections to 11 seats of Maharashtra Legislative Council which would fall vacant on December 5 as sitting members' term would end.
Elections to Aurangabad Teachers constituency, Nagpur Teachers constituency, Konkan Teachers constituency, Nashik Graduates constituency and Amravati Graduates constituency would certainly be delayed due to the Supreme Court order of January 12 seeking fresh registration of voters.
Election Commission of India (ECI) has fixed December 31 as the date for publication of the new voters list.
But this has put a question mark on elections to six 'local authority' constituencies: Sangli-Satara, Bhandara-Gondia, Yavatmal, Pune, Nanded and Jalgaon.

The SC order pertains to only the Graduates and Teachers constituencies in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar and Karnataka.
ECI sources said the elections to the five Graduates and Teachers constituencies would be held in all probability next year, but they pleaded ignorance about the fate of the elections to other six seats.

Decision on holding elections to six Council seats from
local authority constituencies rests with the Chief Election Commissioner.
"Elections would be held in early 2017 in civic bodies under the electoral boundary of Legislative Council seat of Pune local authorities," an ECI source said.
These civic bodies are corporations of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.

The ECI has extended the deadline for registration of new voters for the civic polls from October 14 to October 21.
The 11 MLCs whose terms would end on December 5 are Vikram Kale, Prabhakar Gharge, Rajendra Jain, Sandip Bajoria, Anil Bhosale (all NCP); Dr Sudhir Tambe and Amarnath Rajurkar (both Congress); Gurmukh Das Jagwani, Minister of State for Home Dr Ranjeet Patil (both BJP), Nago Ganar and Ramnath Mote.