The counting of votes in the 29 municipal corporation elections in Maharashtra, including for the Mumbai civic body, was underway on Friday.
Pune, Nagpur, Thane, Nashik and Navi Mumbai are among the 29 cities.
The six major political parties in the fray in the elections were the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, and the two factions each of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party. The parties had entered into several combinations of alliances for the 29 municipal polls.
As of 5.30 pm on Friday, the Bharatiya Janata Party and Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction were leading in 119 seats in Mumbai, crossing the halfway mark, The Times of India reported.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has 227 seats, with 114 needed to win the election.
The BJP has won 27 seats and the Shinde Sena 10 seats, Mid-Day reported.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena group has won 19 seats and its ally, Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman, has won one. The Congress has won six seats.
In Pune, the BJP has won 29 seats and is leading in 43 others, PTI reported.
In Nagpur, the BJP was leading in 84 seats and the Congress in 41. A party needs 76 seats to win in the city municipal corporation.
In Thane, the Shinde Sena has won 33 seats and the BJP five, PTI reported. A party needs 66 seats to win the election.
In Navi Mumbai, the BJP was leading in 70 seats, followed by Shinde Sena’s 36. A party needs 56 seats to win.
In Jalna, Shrikant Pangarkar, an accused in the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, won as an independent candidate from a ward.
The polling took place on Thursday. State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare estimated that the overall voter turnout would be between 46% and 50%, which would be higher than the 2017 polls, The Hindu reported.
Several exit polls have predicted that the constituents of the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance will win the elections for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which were held after a four-year delay.
Pollster Axis My India predicted that the coalition of the BJP and the Shiv Sena faction led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will win 131 to 151 seats out of a total of 227 in Mumbai. The rival alliance of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) may win 58 to 68 seats, it said.
The third major alliance – comprising the Congress, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi and Rashtriya Samaj Party – could win 12 to 16 seats, Axis My India predicted.
Another pollster, JVC, tipped the BJP and Shinde Sena to win 138 seats, the alliance headed by the Uddhav Sena to emerge victorious in 59 places and the coalition led by the Congress to win 23 seats, India Today reported.
Nearly two weeks before polling took place, 68 candidates of the Mahayuti coalition were elected unopposed as several Opposition candidates withdrew their nominations. Of these, 44 belonged to the BJP and 22 to the Shinde Sena. The remaining two were won by Deputy Chief Minister 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 the municipal corporations amid the Opposition’s allegations of irregularities in the filing of the poll nominations.
The polls in Mumbai assume significance because the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is India’s richest civic body with an annual budget of over Rs 74,400 crore.
Also read: ‘Money and muscle’: Why Opposition workers are crying foul in Maharashtra civic polls
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