Massive gains for BJP in Maha civic polls

Best showing in BMC, win in 8 other cities

The BJP made massive gains in Maharashtra’s municipal elections, allowing chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to assert his No. 1 position in the party across the state.

In Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the party was only two seats behind its allytuned-foe Shiv Sena, which managed to retain its hold on Thane.

But the BJP won eight other municipal corporations that went to the polls this week — Ulhasnagar, Nashik, Pune, PimpriChinchwad, Solapur, Akola, Amravati and Nagpur.

The party also did well in zila parishads and panchayat samitis — a CongressNCP stronghold — across Maharashtra. During these elections, billed as a miniassembly poll, Mr Fadnavis himself decided the BJP’s candidates, strategy and its campaign.

The BJP will celebrate its impressive show as vijay utsav (victory celebration) across the country on Saturday. In the 227-member BMC, the BJP took its tally to 82 from 31 in 2012. The Shiv Sena emerged as the single largest party in the hung House with 84 seats, up from 75.

The Congress tally went down from 52 to 31. A party needs 114 seats to stake claim to the mayor’s post.

There was no clarity till evening as to who would rule India’s richest municipal corporation.

“We are number one in Mumbai… Not in a hurry for any alliance,” said Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, who also suspected foul play in missing voters’ names and demanded a probe.

He said he was confident that a Shiv Sainik would be appointed as the city’s mayor. Ahead of the elections, the Shiv Sena had called off its two-decadeold alliance with the BJP. In the last 25 years, irrespective of who ruled the state, the city’s mayor has always been a Shiv Sainik.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked the people of Maharashtra for their faith in the “politics of development” and “good governance”.

In a series of tweets, he praised BJP workers, particularly Maharashtra CM Fadnavis, for “tirelessly working for the people.”

“It has been a great start to 2017! First the unprecedented support in Odisha & now the overwhelming blessings from people of Maharashtra,” he tweeted.

Mr Fadnavis credited the results to “PM Narendra Modi’s guidance”.

“I thank the people of Maharashtra, it’s an unprecedented victory… PM Modi has started the trend of transparency in India. This huge victory is on the agenda of transparency,” he said.

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