MVA back room boys fail to win independents over

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) was banking on the votes of independent MLAs and smaller parties to get their sixth candidate elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state, but in the end an important section of these MLAs voted for the BJP, some even after reportedly telling the MVA that it would get their vote.

- Chaitanya Marpakwar

The strategy of MVA ministers and netas who had turned back room boys and played a key role in finalising the preferential voting strategy and wooing independents and smaller parties eventually failed. In the end, the MVA missed its calculations and, according to Sena Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, six to seven independent MLAs voted for the BJP instead of the MVA.

Raut said the Sena had a list of those who had promised to vote for the MVA and then betrayed them. Raut said that the MVA did not get three votes of Hitendra Thakur's Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and votes of MLAs Sanjay Shinde, Shyam Sunder Shinde, and Devendra Bhuyar, among others.

Political analysts said the MVA may have fallen short of nine votes of independents and smaller parties.