Polls to seven Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra on March 16

A notification announcing elections to seven Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra was issued on Wednesday with polling scheduled for March 16 reported the PTIReturning Officer Vilas Athawale said the deadline for filing nominations is March 5Members of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly will vote in the electionThe terms of seven Rajya Sabha members from the state including NCP SP chief Sharad Pawar are set to expire in April Pawar has not yet clarified whether he will seek another termThe scrutiny of nominations will take place on March 6 while the last date for withdrawal of candidature is March 9 Athawale saidIf required polling will be held on March 16 between 9 am and 4 pm at Vidhan Bhavan followed by the counting of votes according to the notificationBJP holds core committee meet on Maharashtra Rajya Sabha ElectionsThe Bharatiya Janata Party BJP on Tuesday convened a meeting of its core committee to draw up its strategy for the next months Rajya Sabha elections for seven seats in Maharashtra reported news agency PTIThe meeting was held at Varsha the official residence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis party sources told PTIThe BJP has decided to field four candidates for the biennial elections to the Upper House of Parliament the sources told PTIUnion Minister Ramdas Athawale an ally is also expected to be in the fray with the BJPs support while the party is working on how to ensure the victory of its sixth candidate said a leaderGoing by the present strength in the Assembly we can easily win five seats while the Maha Vikas Aghadi MVA can win one the leader told PTIWe are discussing some names of candidates but it would not be appropriate to reveal them at this stage the leader addedMeanwhile in an organisational reshuffle the Maharashtra BJP has appointed firsttime BMC corporator Navnath Ban as the partys chief spokesperson the partys state president Ravindra Chavan announced on TuesdayBan who earlier served as the state media chief of the party replaces Keshav UpadhyeAddressing a press conference Chavan announced the names of the partys new state officebearers including chief spokespersons general secretaries secretaries vicepresidents treasurer and the BJP Yuva Morcha presidentAccording to the list released by the party leaders including MLA Atul Bhatkhalkar Bharati Pawar Sanjay Korge Sanjay Bhende Ramdas Kadam Keshav Upadhye Gopichand Padalkar Priya Shinde Sujay Vikhe Patil and Archana Patil Chakurkar have been appointed as state vicepresidentsThe party has named MLC Niranjan Davkhare Sanjay Kute Madhavi Naik Rajesh Pande Sunil Rane and Yogesh Sagar as general secretariesWith PTI inputs