The New Indian Express News

BJP consolidates Mahayuti dominance in Maharashtra local body polls, big blow to MVA

MUMBAI: The BJP has emerged as the single largest political force in Maharashtras urban local body elections, consolidating the Mahayuti alliances dominance by winning 133 of the 256 Nagar Parishads declared so far and a majority of municipal councillor seats across the State. According to the latest results, the BJP has won 133 Nagar Parishads, while its Mahayuti partners, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, secured 46 and 35 Nagar Parishads respectively. In contrast, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) put up a weak showing, with Congress winning 35 Nagar Parishads, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) eight, and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) six. Results for 256 of the total 288 Nagar Parishads have been declared so far. The BJP also dominated the directly elected president posts of Nagar Parishads, winning 105 positions. Its allies, Shiv Sena and NCP, won 36 and 34 president posts respectively. Among the opposition, Congress won 13 presidents, NCP (SP) 15 and Shiv Sena (UBT) 10. At the councillor level, the BJP further strengthened its position by winning 2,801 municipal councillor seats out of the 6,850 seats for which results have been declared so far. The Shiv Sena and NCP followed with 532 and 173 seats, respectively. On the opposition benches, Congress won 95 seats, NCP (SP) 109 and Shiv Sena (UBT) 135. The Election Commission has announced results for 3,935 councillor seats till now. The BJP has further consolidated its political position within the Mahayuti and across Maharashtra, while the opposition remained frail and failed to stage a comeback in the local body elections. The results have dealt a major blow to the Maha Vikas Aghadi, particularly the Sharad Pawar- and Uddhav Thackeray-led parties. Though the Congress did not perform strongly, it managed to muster relatively better numbers compared to its alliance partners in the opposition. A political observer said that the trend in local body elections is not much surprising at all because in local body elections, people always prefer to go with ruling establishment that is in state and centre. But opposition has to learn lot and work hard if they really want to back as significant force in state politics. The road ahead for the opposition is not easy at all while the responsibility over the ruling party has increased. There will be a lot of expectation from people now. The double engine government has got attached another local body engine. So present government is triple engine government power in centre, state and local body also. The ruling party has performed better to meet the peoples expectations, he added.