Mumbai civic polls: Shiv Sena+ takes early lead

Poll result for the country's richest municipal body, the Maharashtra Civic Polls, will be out on Friday. The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance took the initial lead in the richest civic body Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The counting has also begun for Thane and Pune Municipal Corporation.

In Thane, NCP candidates Amit Sariya (Ward 13B) and Radhabhai Jadhav (Ward 14B) were on lead till 8 am.

The NCP and the Shiv Sena were neck-and-neck in Thane.

Counting of votes for 27 Zilla Parishads, 309 Panchayat Samitis and 10 municipal corporations, including Mumbai will happen on Thursday. The results would be out by the afternoon.

However, political parties have expressed disappointment with Thursday's voter turnout that stood at a dismal 46 per cent - with most of the elite choosing to ignore the polls.

It is a do-or-die battle for the Shiv Sena that has controlled the country's richest civic body since 1996. Also, it is a big test for the ruling Congress and the NCP that contested together for the first time.

BMC, the country's richest civic body with a budget of over Rs 20,000 crore, more than that of many states, has 227 seats.

Milind Deora, Congress MP, said, "Mumbai's affluent do not vote as much, in fact not at all. And that's something that needs to change."

State Election Commissioner Neela Satyanarayan expressed concern about the low turn-out. In the last three civic polls, over half the electorate in Mumbai did not exercise their franchise, with the voting percentage ranging between 42 and 46 per cent. In 2007 polls, only 46 per cent had voted.

The voting percentages in other nine cities on Thursday were as follows: Thane (52 per cent), Ulhasnagar (43 per cent), Nashik (58 per cent), Pune (53 per cent), Pimpri-Chinchwad (56 per cent), Solapur (58 per cent), Akola (57 per cent), Nagpur (55 per cent) and Amravati (58 per cent).

Billed as a mini-assembly election, the polls will test the political acumen and charisma of not only Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, but also Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray and his son Uddhav Thackeray.

	Seats	Congress +	Shiv Sena +	MNS	Other
Mumbai	33/227	7	18	1	7

	Seats	Congress	NCP	Shiv Sena	BJP	MNS	Others
Pune	15/152	3	5	1	4	2	0
Thane	89/130	15	22	30	3	6	5
Nagpur	7/145	1	0	0	6	0	0
Nashik	0/122	0	0	0	0	0	0