Maharashtra civic polls: BJP, allies win in Mumbai, Pune, other major cities
The BJP’s victory margin in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation was slimmer than predicted, winning 89 seats ahead of the Opposition alliance’s 72.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies on Friday won most of the 29 municipal corporation elections in Maharashtra.
The polling took place on Thursday. In some cities, the civic body elections took place after a four-year delay.
The six major political parties in the state – the BJP, the Congress, and the two factions each of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party – had entered into several combinations of tie-ups in the 29 cities.
Mumbai
As of 7.30 am on Saturday, the BJP and its ally, the Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led faction of the Shiv Sena, won 118 seats in Mumbai. Of these, the BJP won 89 seats.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the country’s richest civic body, has 227 seats, with 114 needed to win the election.
The Opposition alliance comprising the Uddhav Thackeray-led group of the Shiv Sena, Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP faction won 72 seats. Of these, the Uddhav Sena won 65 seats.
The Congress, contesting separately, won 24 seats.
The city had a mayor from the undivided Shiv Sena between 1996 and 2022, when the previous tenure of the civic body ended.
Several exit polls had predicted a wider victory margin for the BJP-Shinde Sena alliance in Mumbai.
Pollster Axis My India on Thursday predicted that the BJP-Shinde Sena alliance will win 131 to 151 seats out of the 227. The Uddhav Sena-led alliance was predicted to win 58 to 68 seats.
Other major cities
In Pune, the BJP won 123 out of the 165 seats, defeating an alliance of the two NCPs. While the Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar-led faction of the NCP won 21 seats, Sharad Pawar’s group clinched three. The Congress won 16 seats.
The BJP also defeated the NCP factions in their stronghold of Pimpri-Chinchwad.
In Nagpur, the state’s second capital, the BJP won 102 of the 151 seats. The Congress won 35.
The Shinde Sena won 72 seats in Thane. A party needs 66 seats to win the election in the city. The BJP, not contesting in an alliance with the Shinde Sena, won 28. In Kalyan-Dombivali, the Shinde Sena won 53 of the 122 seats, three more than the BJP, which was contesting separately. The Uddhav Sena won 11.
The BJP won 65 of the 111 seats in Navi Mumbai, finishing ahead of the Shinde Sena’s 43.
The Congress was the single-largest party in Latur, Kolhapur, Bhiwandi and Chandrapur.
In Jalna, Shrikant Pangarkar, an accused in the 2017 murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, won as an independent candidate from a ward.
Nearly two weeks before polling took place, 68 candidates of the BJP-led 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 Ajit Pawar’s NCP group.
The wins themselves were not enough for the ruling alliance to clinch control of any municipal corporation. However, the State Election Commission sought reports from the municipal corporations amid the Opposition’s allegations of irregularities in the filing of the poll nominations.
Also read: ‘Money and muscle’: Why Opposition workers are crying foul in Maharashtra civic polls
