Tiger tamed: BJP ends Shiv Sena's Mumbai dominance, Congress wiped out
- Shiv Sena has been in power in the BMC for over two decades.
- The recent election has 21,620 candidates for 5,777 seats in the 10 municipal corporations in Maharashtra.
FollowThe civic polls in Mumbai have generated much political heat on account of the fierce fight between the BJP and the Sena, despite being partners in governments in the state and at the Centre.
The Shiv Sena will maintain its hold on Mumbai, winning 84 seats in the hotly contest Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls. But the real surprise lay for the BJP, who have been recovering from PM Modi's demonetization decision. The BJP saw a three-fold jump in their fortunes, bagging a total of 81 seats.
The half way mark to rule the civic body is 114 seats. As both the Shiv Sena and the BJP lack an absolute majority, the two may have to remain in an alliance in the city as well, similar to their bonding in the state and Central governments.
However, if the BJP agrees to provide outside support, the Shiv Sena can try to run the BMC through a simple majority. "It was Sena which first took the step of breaking the alliance with us, and they will have to now take the first step to decide the future course," BJP MLA Parag Alavani said before the results came out.
Retaining control of the BMC is vital for Shiv Sena as the city has remained its prime political space ever since the party's formation in 1966. The Sena has been in power in BMC for over two decades.
The Congress and the NCP are far behind the Sena and the BJP, winning 31 and nine seats, respectively, in the 227-member BMC. The biggest loser was Raj Thackeray and the MNS, which won a paltry seven seats.
The civic polls, especially in the country's financial hub Mumbai, have generated much political heat on account of the fierce fight between the BJP and the Sena, despite being partners in governments in the state and at the Centre.
The battle of the estranged allies has put a question mark on the stability of the BJP-led ministry in the state as Sena had been tenacious in its attack on the senior partner and the Centre's demonetisation policy.
Today's results are not just confined to Mumbai. Poll results today will determine the fate of 21,620 candidates for 5,777 seats up for grabs in the 10 municipal corporations, 25 zilla parishads and 283 panchayat samitis for which the elections were held in two phases.
The stakes are high for Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, who led their respective parties from the front and were involved in a high decibel and no-holds-barred campaign, relegating the opposition Congress, NCP and other players like the MNS and the AIMIM to the background.
Apart from Mumbai, the municipal corporations which went to the polls were Thane, Ulhasnagar, Nashik, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Solapur, Akola, Amravati and Nagpur.
In municipal corporations excluding Mumbai, there are multi–member wards where the electorate cast their votes for each of the categories in the panel. Each panel has more than two wards.
The districts where elections to 283 panchayats samitis were held are - Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Beed, Buldhana, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Hingoli, Jalgaon, Jalna, Latur, Nanded, Osmanabad, Parbhani, Wardha, Yavatmal, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Pune, Solapur, Nashik, Amravati and Gadchiroli.
