VOTING for elections to 11 Maharashtra Legislative Council seats concluded on Thursday evening with a turnout of 99.02 per cent, officials said. Counting of votes will be held on June 22. The elections saw six candidates of the ruling MahaYuti winning unopposed, with the Opposition alleging that their candidates were pressurised to withdraw from the contest. The BJP-led ruling coalition has denied the allegation. The MahaYuti is being seen as having an edge in the contest, having secured a majority in the recent elections to local governing bodies which formed the electorate for the Council elections. According to officials, 6,978 of the total 7,047 eligible voters, comprising Members of Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils and Zilla Parishads, exercised their franchise on Thursday. The biennial elections were originally notified for 17 seats, including one by-poll, but polling was necessitated in only 11 constituencies as the candidates of the MahaYuti alliance of the BJP, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Sunetra Pawar-led NCP secured unopposed victories in six seats. The BJPs Arun Lakhani from Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli and Prajakt Tanpure from Ahilyanagar, NCP nominees Vikram Kakade from Pune and Aniket Tatkare from Raigad-Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, and Shiv Sena candidates Ravindra Phatak from Thane and Dushyant Chaturvedi from Yavatmal were elected unopposed. Tanpure had joined the BJP shortly before filing his nomination. The Ahilyanagar leader, a nephew of NCP (SP) leader Jayant Patil, had earlier served as a minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Government. Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Bal Mane withdrew from the election to Konkan constituency after meeting BJP minister Nitesh Rane, and was subsequently expelled from his party.

 

Congress nominees Shailesh Agrawal and Sahebrao Kamble, and NCP (SP) candidate Shrikant Patil in Pune were among those who pulled out of the contest, paving the way for the victories of Mahayuti candidates. In Aurangabad-Jalna, Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate Deoyani Patil Dongaonkar withdrew from the fray. The contest between the BJP’s Dhairyasheel Kadam and NCP (SP)’s Abhaysinh Jagtap in Satara-Sangli constituency was keenly watched. Local Shiv Sena leaders had resented the allocation of the seat to the ally BJP, and Sena minister Shambhuraj Desai even skipped a coordination meeting before assuring support to the BJP candidate. Tanajirao Patil, a Shiv Sena rebel, eventually withdrew from the race. The elections were held after a long delay, as several council seats had remained vacant since 2022 due to pending local body polls. The Election Commission conducted civic elections in phases between December 2025 and January 2026, enabling the conduct of Council polls. In Amravati, Congress candidate Harshjit Deshmukh withdrew citing health reasons. Senior party leader Yashomati Thakur alleged that he had been “managed” by rival parties. The Congress and Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi also appeared divided over support to VBA candidate Neelesh Vishwakarma. In Nashik, BJP leader Gokul Gite entered the fray as an independent against the Shiv Sena’s Narendra Darade, the ruling alliance’s official candidate. Senior Mahayuti leaders including Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, BJP minister Girish Mahajan and Shiv Sena minister Uday Samant intervened to resolve the issue.

 

Following intense discussions, Gite halted his campaign, but his name remained on the ballot as the withdrawal deadline had passed. In Nanded, three candidates contested the seat with an electorate of 452 voters drawn from the Municipal Corporation and local bodies. Similarly, in the Osmanabad-Latur-Beed constituency, BJP’s Basavaraj Patil Murumkar and Congress nominee Mahesh Deshmukh were among the contenders in a contest involving 367 voters.