New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday (September 27) withdrew its candidate Sanjay Upadhyay from the October 4 Rajya Sabha bypoll from Maharashtra, paving the way for Congress candidate Rajani Patil’s unopposed victory, news reports said.The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of sitting MP Rajeev Satav.Satav, a Congress leader who hailed from Maharashtra’s Hingoli district, died in May this year due to post-COVID-19 complications. His term was to end on April 2, 2026.The Congress had projected Patil as the Maha Vikas Aghadi candidate.The voting for the Rajya Sabha seat was scheduled to be held on October 4 and counting of votes scheduled to take place on the same day.However, the BJP decided on Monday to withdraw from contest at the party’s core committee meeting.According to the Indian Express, the decision was announced by Maharashtra BJP president Chandrakant Patil. “The party’s decision is supreme. If the party has decided to withdraw my candidature, I accept with all humility. I am an obedient worker,” Upadhyay told the newspaper.Also read: Seven Years of Modi: Why India Needs To Find Its Joe BidenThe report added the decision came days after Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Nana Patole and Balasahen Thorat, a senior minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, met leader of Opposition in the state assembly, Devendra Fadnavis.Fadnavis told the daily that when Patole and Thorat came to meet him, they made a case for a consensus candidate for the seat as a tribute to Satav. “Accordingly, I had given them assurance it would be considered. But since the formal decision is taken by core committee, we took the decision today [Monday],” Fadnavis said.The Congress leaders expressed gratitude over Fadnavis’s decision to not contest any poll for the seat necessitated by the death of a sitting member. “It has been a long established tradition in Maharashtra to honour the sitting member by not having any poll. In the past, Congress and NCP did not field candidates against BJP after the death of Pramod Mahajan. There are several such instances. I am happy BJP has kept the tradition intact,” Thorat told the newspaper.In terms of numbers, the saffron party didn’t seem to have the numbers to defeat the Congress candidate. There are 288 members in state legislative assembly which constitute the electoral college of Rajya Sabha polls.Congress (44), NCP (54) and Shiv Sena (56) together added to 154 members. The BJP only had 105 members.
