Maharashtra council elections: 203 MLAs cast their votes till noon

Mumbai, Jul 12 (PTI) As many as 203 MLAs have cast their votes till noon on Friday in the biennial elections to 11 seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council.

There are 12 candidates in the fray for the 11 seats in the upper house of the state legislature where the 274 current members of the legislative assembly form the electoral college.

The voting began at the Vidhan Bhavan complex here at 9 am and will continue till 4 pm.

The counting of votes will be taken up at 5 pm.

Eleven members of the upper house of the state legislature are retiring on July 27 and these high-stakes polls are being held to fill the vacancies.

Each winning candidate would need a quota of 23 first-preference votes.

The BJP has fielded five candidates, while its Mahayuti allies Shiv Sena and NCP have nominated two each.

The Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) have fielded one candidate each, while their Maha Vikas Aghadi partner NCP (SP) is backing the nominee of the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP).