Maha CM elected unopposed to Legislative Council

The election was unopposed since the opposition did not field a candidate against him.

Chavan was declared elected after the deadline for withdrawal of nomination papers ended on Wednesday.

With the election, Chavan has fulfilled the Constitutional stipulation of getting elected to the state legislature within six months of being sworn-in as the chief minister.

Chavan, who was minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office, succeeded Ashok Chavan as chief minister in November last year, after the latter resigned over the Adarsh Housing Society scam.

The chief minister, whose father D R Chavan was a Union minister and mother Premlabai the state unit president of the Congress, was never a member of the state legislature until now.

An engineer by training, Chavan started his political career in 1991, winning the Lok Sabha election in his family bastion of Karad. He retained the seat in 1996 and 1998, but lost to Shrinivas Patil of the Nationalist Congress Party in 1999.

He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2002 and was re-elected in 2007.