This is a state of 128 million with complex nuances and its poltics are key to making or breaking indian governments. All of this is key. these elections are key to determining the fate of maharastra poltics inculding the Mumbia muncipal elections
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**Mumbai:** A year after it won its highest ever tally in Maharashtra’s assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dominated elections to municipal councils and nagar panchayats too, emerging as the single largest party by a wide margin on Sunday.
The Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, which clashed with ally BJP at several places during the election, has also emerged strong and smug, leading in more local bodies than all three parties of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) put together.
The BJP has won the presidents’ posts in 117 local bodies. The Shinde-led Shiv Sena emerged as the second strongest, with 53 council presidents, followed by the Ajit Pawar-led NCP with 37.
Among the Opposition parties, the Congress was behind the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, with presidents in 28 councils and nagar panchayats, while the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) and NCP (Sharad Pawar) were crushed. The two parties won nine and seven council presidents, respectively.
Notably, Sunday’s verdict yet again established that public sentiment is with Shinde’s Shiv Sena, and not Uddhav Thackeray’s, with the latter restrained to single-digit victory in terms of the number of council presidents it managed to have elected.
Sanjay Patil, a researcher with the Mumbai University’s politics and civics department, said that the biggest takeaway was how Eknath Shinde and his Shiv Sena have carved a definite space for themselves in Maharashtra’s politics.
“By the looks of it, it was expected that the BJP will be at the top and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena will be in the second position. But, the kind of numbers that Shinde has got beats the expectation of most political watchers. The BJP’s strong performance, on the other hand, is not surprising and is in line with the mandate it got last year in the assembly election,” he told ThePrint.
The verdict, Patil added, puts Eknath Shinde at a definite advantage for the next set of elections.
The municipal council and nagar panchayat polls were held on 2 and 20 December. The votes for all the 288 local bodies—246 municipal councils and 42 nagar panchayats—were counted Sunday.
“In the last 20-25 years too, no party in Maharashtra has managed to get the kind of success that the BJP and Mahayuti has this time,” Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told reporters in Nagpur.
“We were the number 1 party in municipal councils in 2017. We had 1,602 councillors at the time. Now, we have got 3,352 councillors elected. This means, 48 percent of the total councillors are from the BJP alone, which is an immense mandate from people.”
This election is being seen as a precursor to the larger municipal corporation polls to be held 15 January. Twenty-nine corporations, including key civic bodies such as Mumbai, considered to be the country’s richest civic body, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, and Pimpri Chinchwad, will vote in a single phase in the election next month. The votes will be counted 16 January.
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This is a state of 128 million with complex nuances and its poltics are key to making or breaking indian governments. All of this is key. these elections are key to determining the fate of maharastra poltics inculding the Mumbia muncipal elections
**Mumbai:** A year after it won its highest ever tally in Maharashtra’s assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dominated elections to municipal councils and nagar panchayats too, emerging as the single largest party by a wide margin on Sunday.
The Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, which clashed with ally BJP at several places during the election, has also emerged strong and smug, leading in more local bodies than all three parties of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) put together.
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The BJP has won the presidents’ posts in 117 local bodies. The Shinde-led Shiv Sena emerged as the second strongest, with 53 council presidents, followed by the Ajit Pawar-led NCP with 37.
Among the Opposition parties, the Congress was behind the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, with presidents in 28 councils and nagar panchayats, while the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) and NCP (Sharad Pawar) were crushed. The two parties won nine and seven council presidents, respectively.
Notably, Sunday’s verdict yet again established that public sentiment is with Shinde’s Shiv Sena, and not Uddhav Thackeray’s, with the latter restrained to single-digit victory in terms of the number of council presidents it managed to have elected.
Sanjay Patil, a researcher with the Mumbai University’s politics and civics department, said that the biggest takeaway was how Eknath Shinde and his Shiv Sena have carved a definite space for themselves in Maharashtra’s politics.
“By the looks of it, it was expected that the BJP will be at the top and the Shinde-led Shiv Sena will be in the second position. But, the kind of numbers that Shinde has got beats the expectation of most political watchers. The BJP’s strong performance, on the other hand, is not surprising and is in line with the mandate it got last year in the assembly election,” he told ThePrint.
The verdict, Patil added, puts Eknath Shinde at a definite advantage for the next set of elections.
The municipal council and nagar panchayat polls were held on 2 and 20 December. The votes for all the 288 local bodies—246 municipal councils and 42 nagar panchayats—were counted Sunday.
“In the last 20-25 years too, no party in Maharashtra has managed to get the kind of success that the BJP and Mahayuti has this time,” Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told reporters in Nagpur.
“We were the number 1 party in municipal councils in 2017. We had 1,602 councillors at the time. Now, we have got 3,352 councillors elected. This means, 48 percent of the total councillors are from the BJP alone, which is an immense mandate from people.”
This election is being seen as a precursor to the larger municipal corporation polls to be held 15 January. Twenty-nine corporations, including key civic bodies such as Mumbai, considered to be the country’s richest civic body, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, and Pimpri Chinchwad, will vote in a single phase in the election next month. The votes will be counted 16 January.