Nationalist Congress Party leader Praful Patel, Shiv Sena’s Milind Deora and Ashok Chavan from the Bharatiya Janata Party filed their nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha polls on Thursday, reported ANI.

Voting for the six Rajya Sabha seats in Maharashtra will take place on February 27.

Both Chavan and Deora recently defected from the Congress. While Chavan, former chief minister of Maharashtra, joined the BJP on Tuesday, Deora joined the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on January 14.

On Wednesday, Chavan thanked the BJP for selecting him as its Rajya Sabha candidate, reported India Today. “I cannot describe my feelings in words,” he said. “The BJP has reposed faith in me even though I joined the party yesterday. This is a huge responsibility.”

On the other hand, Patel told media persons that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, the National Democratic Alliance will win more than 400 seats in the Lok Sabha polls, reported ANI.

The former Union minister also claimed that out of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, the BJP-led alliance will win 45 seats and the state will make a “big contribution to Modi’s victory”.

"On the instructions of Ajit Pawar, Sunil Tatkare, Dhananjay Munde, we have filed the nomination today,” Patel told reporters. “There is a doubt in people's mind that my term is not over, yet people are arguing about why the nomination has been filed today. We are in politics, some things happen, you will understand the picture in the coming days.”

MLAs from the Nationalist Congress Party had last year joined the Shiv Sena and BJP coalition government in Maharashtra. The move led to a split in the party with one faction supporting Ajit Pawar, who is now the deputy chief minister, and another his uncle Sharad Pawar.