Maharashtra Civic Elections results: Fadnavis–Shinde camp dominates, Thackerays, Congress falter

The Mahayuti alliance, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, has expanded its lead in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), with the trends from preliminary data indicating that the alliance is leading in 118 wards in Mumbai. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is trailing on 78 seats.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is leading on 86 seats, Shiv Sena is leading in 31 seats in Mumbai, as per trends shown on TV.

The Shiv Sena (UBT) alliance has managed to cross the 78 mark, with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) only leading in 9, and UBT Sena leading in 58, and NCP (SP) leading only in 1.

Similarly, the Ajit Pawar's NCP is also leading in 1 seat, while the Congress party continued to have a dismal performance with leads in only 10 seats.

According to the BMC, UBT's Foram Parmar is trailing in ward 1, while the party candidate Gita Bhandari is leading in ward 32. Shinde's Shiv Sena candidate Varsha Tembelkar is leading in Ward 51. Meanwhile in BJP camp, Deepak Tavde, Ujjwal Veti, and Neil Somaiya are leading in their respective wards. Congress' Asha Deepak Kale also won the ward number 183 in Mumbai's Dharavi.

In the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) the BJP has displaced the Pawars with leads in 50 of 165 seats, while the two NCP factions lead in 5 and Congress-UBT alliance in 7. According to the official data from PMC, BJP has 47 leads while the NCP factions lead in 8 and the Congress in 5 wards.

In Pune's first results, from Ward No. 20 in the Shankar Maharaj Math-Bibewadi area, three BJP candidates, Rajendra Shilimkar, Tanvi Divekar, and Mansi Deshpande, were elected, while NCP's Gaurav Ghule also emerged victorious, defeating BJP's Mahendra Sundecha.

In Thane Municipal Corporation, the home seat of Deputy CM Eknath Shinde BJP led in 21 of 131 wards, with the NCP at 6 and UBT-MNS-NCP(SP) at 6 leads.

The BMC elections concluded on Thursday, recording a voter turnout of 52.94 per cent, according to the data released by the State Election Commissioner (SEC) today.

The elections for India's richest municipal corporations were marred by allegations by the Shiv Sena (UBT)- MNS alliance, and subsequently refuted by the SEC.

The elections, which were conducted after a gap of eight years, marked a significant civic exercise for Mumbai. The previous BMC elections were held in 2017, while the term of the last elected mayor, Kishori Pednekar, ended in March 2022. With the completion of the polls, Mumbai is set to get a new mayor after nearly four years.

(With agency inputs)