Mumbai: Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Vilasrao Deshmukh was on Monday elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, after the Shiv Sena candidate pulled out from the race on the last date of withdrawal of nomination.
Apart from Deshmukh, NCP's Govindrao Adik and Ranjitsinh Mohite-Patil were also declared elected unopposed.
Assistant Returning Officer S S Mayekar said that Shiv Sena candidate Advocate Rahul Narwekar withdrew his candidature before 3 pm.
Shiv Sena leader Arvind Nerkar said that the party had "boycotted" the election to protest against the Election Commission's (EC) decision to issue three separate notifications when the sitting Rajya Sabha MPs had resigned at the same time.
"We challenged the EC decision in the Supreme Court. The apex court did not stay the election process but said the PIL was very important. We have decided to boycott the election process and hence pulled out our candidate. Our party is awaiting the SC ruling in this connection. We are confident that the ruling will be on our side," he said.
Deshmukh had filed his papers to fill the vacancy created due to the resignation of Union Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde from the Upper House after his election to the Lok Sabha from Solapur parliamentary constituency in the recent elections.