Voting is underway for 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra, including the Mumbai civic body, on Thursday. The results of the elections will be declared on Friday.
Voting began at 7.30 am and will end at 5.30 pm.
As of 3.30 pm, the voter turnout in Mumbai stood at 41%, PTI reported.
Across the state, 3.4 crore voters are eligible to decide the fate of 15,931 candidates, PTI reported.
Voters in cities other than Mumbai will cast multiple votes for the first time to choose several corporators for each ward under the panel system. Electors in Mumbai will have to cast a single vote due to the traditional one-ward-one-corporator model.
Dozens of senior police officers, along with 11,938 constables and 42,703 home guards have been deployed across the state to maintain law and order, The Hindu reported. Fifty-seven companies of the State Reserve Police Force have been deployed.
The six major political parties in the fray in the municipal elections are the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, and the two factions of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party. The parties have entered into several different alliances across the 29 municipal corporations.
In Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad, Ajit Pawar’s faction of the NCP will contest the elections in alliance with the Sharad Pawar-led faction of the NCP.
In Mumbai, the BJP has retained its alliance with the Shiv Sena group led by Eknath Shinde, while the NCP faction headed by Ajit Pawar is contesting independently.
The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) has allied with its former rival, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, along with the NCP faction headed by Sharad Pawar. The Congress has entered into a coalition with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi.
Nearly two weeks before polling took place, 68 candidates of the Mahayuti coalition were elected unopposed in the municipal elections. The wins had become clear after the deadline to withdraw nominations ended on January 2.
Several candidates of the Opposition alliance had withdrawn their nominations.
Of the 68 candidates who won unopposed, 44 belonged to the ruling BJP. Its ally, the Shinde Sena won 22 seats unopposed. The remaining two were won by Ajit Pawar’s NCP group. The wins themselves were not enough for the ruling alliance to clinch control of any municipal corporation.
However, the Maharashtra State Election Commission sought reports from these municipal corporations amid the Opposition’s allegations of irregularities in the filing of the poll nominations.
EVM glitches reported in Pune, officials say machines replaced
Some electronic voting machines reported glitches during the initial hours of polling in Pune but officials said that the faulty devices were replaced and voting continued without disruption, PTI reported.
Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) leader Rohit Pawar said on social media that some of the EVMs in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad shut down at the start of polling and that a few showed time lags of up to 15 minutes.
“In some places, light was blinking after casting a vote for the third candidate, while in some cases, despite casting all four votes, the mandatory light was not blinking,” he said. “All these things are suspicious. The State Election Commission should give a clarification.”
Pune’s Additional Municipal Commissioner and poll in-charge Omprakash Divte told PTI that 15 to 20 EVMs developed snags soon after polling began. “However, substitute machines kept with sectoral election officers were immediately deployed and polling continued in those wards without any glitch,” he was quoted as saying.
As of 1.30 pm, the voter turnout in Pune was 23%, PTI reported.
High stakes in Mumbai
In the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which is India’s richest civic body with an annual budget of over Rs 74,400 crore, more than 1 crore voters will cast their ballots to elect 227 corporators, with about 1,700 candidates in the fray, in elections being held after a four-year delay.
More than 28,000 police personnel have been deployed across Mumbai to maintain law and order.
Ahead of the Mumbai civic polls, the Thackeray cousins joined hands two decades after Raj Thackeray left the Shiv Sena to form the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
The two parties have the support of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar).
While the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) is contesting 163 seats, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is vying for 53. The Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) is contesting 11 seats.
The BJP is contesting 137 seats in the Mumbai municipal body, while the Shinde Sena is contesting 90.
Also read:
- ‘Money and muscle’: Why Opposition workers are crying foul in Maharashtra civic polls
- Maharashtra civic polls: Use of marker pens instead of indelible ink sparks row
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