Shiv Sena will field two candidates for Rajya Sabha polls, says Sanjay Raut

Effectively shutting the door on Yuvraj Sambhajiraje Chhatrapati of Kolhapur the Shiv Sena on Monday made it clear that it would not support any independent candidate in the upcoming Rajya Sabha electionsSenas Chief Spokesperson Sanjay Raut said that the party will put up two candidates and expressed confidence that both will winRauts reference was to former Presidentnominated MP Sambhajirajes announcement last week that he would contest the RS elections solo and seek the support of various partiesWe have nothing against Sambhajiraje If he has said he will contest independently then he must have arranged for his 42 votes Raut retorted and reiterated the Sena stance on the issueSince the past couple of days there has been political speculation that the Sena would be prepared to field Sambhajiraje provided he joined the party and was reportedly given a deadline till 12 noon Monday May 23 to decideHowever Sambhajiraje has not commented on the matter so far and is firm on going solo in the RS pollsRaut confirmed that the Sena had invited Sambhajiraje to join the party and become its candidate and now the decision was left to himReaffirming that both the seats belong to the Sena Raut said the party is keen to increase its tally in the Upper House of Parliament and hence there was no question of backing any independent candidateThe RS elections are being held to fill up the vacancies by six retiring members one each from ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi MVA allies Shiv Sena Sanjay Raut Nationalist Congress Party Praful Patel and Congress P Chidambaram and three from the Bharatiya Janata Party Dr Vinay Sahasrabuddhe Piyush Goyal and Dr Vikas MahatmeHowever as per indications BJP may repeat Commerce amp Industry Minister Piyush Goyal the Sena will field its fiery Chief Spokesperson Raut and NCP may retain its general secretary Patel who is a close confidante of party President Sharad Pawar but the fate of Congress Chidambaram is uncertain with the recent CBI action against his familyThis time given the realignment of the legislature after the 2019 Assembly elections the BJP can comfortably win two seats of the three it holds and the MVA can win their three seats and is toying with a fourth candidate to bag the third seat held by the BJPStaking a unilateral claim to the sixth seat is Sambhajirae the 13th direct descendent of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj who plans to dive into the RS polls as an independentThe electoral college comprises the 288 MLAs and a candidate must get 42 votes to win a seat in the Upper House of ParliamentThe MVA has 170 MLAs Shiv Sena 55 one MLA Ramesh Latke died in Dubai last week NCP 53 Congress 44 smaller partiesgroups 10 and 8 IndependentsOn the Opposition side BJP has 106 with other smaller partiesgroups 2 and 5 IndependentsSambhajiraje explained that in these circumstances the BJP can get only two seats and the SenaNCPCongress one each so he would contest that extra sixth seat independently with the support of various major and smaller partiesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever