3 Cong MLAs skip key party meet ahead of Maharashtra council polls

Amid talks of cross-voting, three of the 37 Congress MLAs in Maharashtra skipped a meeting called by the party ahead of the legislative council polls on Friday.

Zeeshan Siddique, Jitesh Antapurkar and Sanjay Jagtap were absent in the meeting held in Mumbai on Thursday night.

Antapurkar is close to former chief minister Ashok Chavan, who switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party a few months ago, while Zeeshan's father Baba Siddique joined the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

Sanjay Jagtap skipped the meeting as he was in 'wari' (annual pilgrimage procession) and on his to the temple town of Pandharpur. The party said Jagtap had informed the leadership about his absence.

However, Sulabha Khodke, whose husband is a close aide of Ajit Pawar, and Hiraman Khoskar, said to be in touch with the NCP, attended the meeting.

Senior Congress leader Nitin Raut told PTI that his party is in a comfortable position.

"It is the ruling alliance which is scared which is why they have held their MLAs hostage, something we haven't done," he said.

Biennial elections to 11 council seats are being held on the Vidhan Bhavan complex.

Each winning candidate would need a quota of 23 first-preference votes.

The Congress has nominated one candidate -- Pradnya Satav -- and its surplus votes will be distributed to the other two Maha Vikas Aghadi-backed candidates.

Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar slammed reports of cross-voting in Congress ranks.

"All our MLAs are in their homes, unlike the ruling alliance legislators. Last night, 35 MLAs were present at the meeting," he said.

Both the MLAs will be with the Congress, he stressed.

"We have got in touch with Antapurkar and Zeeshan. Antapurkar was absent because of a misunderstanding since he and his late father were close to Ashok Chavan," said Wadettiwar.

The 288-member legislative assembly is the electoral college for the polls and its current strength is 274.

The BJP is the largest party in the assembly with 103 members, followed by the Shiv Sena (38), the NCP (42), the Congress (37), the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray 15 and the NCP-Sharadchandra Pawar 10.

The BJP has fielded five candidates and its ally Shiv Sena two. The NCP has nominated two candidates.

The Shiv Sena-UBT has fielded one candidate, while the NCP-SP is backing the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) nominee.