Biennial elections for five MLC Graduate, Teachers’ seats to be held on October 23
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Representational file image. | Photo Credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has announced that biennial elections will be held on October 23 for five of the 78 Maharashtra Legislative Council seats, representing Graduate and Teachers’ constituencies.
The five seats include Graduate and Teachers’ constituencies across the Aurangabad, Pune, Nagpur and Amravati divisions. The election will be held as the terms of the sitting members are due to expire in December.
Voting will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with counting scheduled for October 27, as per the statement released by the Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer’s office on Tuesday (September 22, 2026).
The elections will be held for the Aurangabad Division Graduates’, Pune Division Graduates’, Nagpur Division Graduates’, Amravati Division Teachers’ and Pune Division Teachers’ constituencies.
The sitting members from these constituencies are Satish Chavan from Aurangabad Division Graduates’, Arun Lad from Pune Division Graduates’, Abhijit Wanjarri from Nagpur Division Graduates’, Kiran Sarnaik from Amravati Division Teachers’ and Jayant Asgaonkar from Pune Division Teachers’.
Mr. Wanjarri and Mr. Asgaonkar are Congress members, Mr. Lad belongs to the NCP (SP), while Mr. Sarnaik was elected as an Independent candidate. Mr. Chavan was elected on an undivided NCP ticket in 2020. This means no MLC is retring from BJP or Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena.
The formal election notification will be issued on September 29, while candidates can file their nominations until October 6. The nominations will be scrutinised on October 7, and candidates will be allowed to withdraw their nominations until October 9.
The ECI stated that the entire election process will be completed before October 31.
The Model Code of Conduct came into force with immediate effect in the constituencies concerned following the announcement of the election schedule, the Chief Electoral Officer’s office said. Officials and candidates have been asked to strictly comply with the code.
Graduate and Teachers’ constituencies form part of the Maharashtra Legislative Council’s electoral structure, with eligible voters registered in the respective categories electing their representatives to the Upper House.
Members of the Legislative Council have six-year terms, with around one-third of the House retiring every two years. The Council is a permanent House and, unlike the Legislative Assembly, is not subject to dissolution. Graduate and Teachers’ constituencies have separate electoral rolls, with voting restricted to electors who meet the prescribed educational or teaching qualifications.
Under Article 171, roughly one-third are elected by local authorities, one-third by MLAs, one-twelfth by graduates, one-twelfth by teachers, and the remainder are nominated by the Governor. Graduate voters must be ordinarily resident in the constituency and have held a recognised graduate or equivalent qualification for at least three years before the qualifying date. For Teachers’ constituencies, voters must ordinarily reside in the constituency and have taught for an aggregate of at least three years during the preceding six years in eligible institutions of at least secondary-school standard.
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