Up until noon on Friday, 203 MLAs had voted in the biennial elections for 11 seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Council. There are 12 candidates competing for these 11 seats, with the electoral college comprising the 274 current members of the legislative assembly.
Voting commenced at 9 am at the Vidhan Bhavan complex and will continue until 4 pm, followed by the counting of votes at 5 pm. Eleven members of the upper house of the state legislature are retiring on July 27, and these important elections are being held to fill the vacancies.
To win, each candidate must secure a minimum of 23 first-preference votes. The BJP has put forward five candidates, while their allies Shiv Sena and NCP have nominated two each.
The Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) have fielded one candidate each, and NCP (SP), a partner of Maha Vikas Aghadi, is supporting the nominee of the Peasants and Workers Party.