BJP candidate Atul Shah wins through lottery after tie

MUMBAI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP’s) Atul Shah enjoyed the rub of the green on Thursday after he emerged victorious on the closely-contested Ward 220 seat through a lottery following a tie.

After the initial round of counting in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections, Shiv-Sena’s Surendra Bagalkar was declared the winner on Ward 220 with a margin of just three votes but Atul Shah demanded a recount.

The votes were then counted thrice in the presence of both candidates and they were found to have got 5,946 votes each.

After the recounting, both the candidates were joined by their senior party leaders at the counting centre. Shah was joined by BJPs education minister Vinod Tawde and Sena leaders Sanjay Raut, Arvind Sawant and Anil Desai accompanied Bagalkar at the centre.

Surendra Bagalkar, from Sena was a sitting corporator and also standing committee member.

BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta then rushed to the counting centre in Mumbai Central. As per the set procedure, a seven-year-old was then asked to pick a chit from the two bearing the names of both the candidates.

The chit bearing Shah’s name was drawn and he was declared the winner.

“I never anticipated such a thing (tie) in the ward. But I am happy and satisfied that I won the lottery which I consider God’s gift. I am happy that I was able to remove Sena from the ward which it almost governed for over two decades,” Shah said.