Shiv Sena notches early leads in BMC polls

Mumbai, Feb 23 (IANS) The Shiv Sena notched early leads in 30 wards while the BJP was leading in 20 wards as counting of votes cast in the elections to the 227-seat BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation, the country's biggest civic body, got underway, officials said here on Friday.

The Congress was a distant third with leads in only six wards, followed by Nationalist Congress Party (2) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (3) and Independents (2), as the first trends were available by mid-morning.

Mumbai witnessed a record 55 per cent voter turnout in the civic elections as nearly five million people exercised their franchise.

Counting of ballot has also been taken up simultaneously in nine other major civic bodies, 26 zilla parishads and 283 panchayat samitis across Maharashtra, which voted in the two-phase elections on February 16 and February 21.

Voting was conducted on February 16 for zilla parishads of Jalgaon, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Jalna, Parbhani, Hingoli, Beed, Nanded, Osmanabad, Latur, Buldhana, Yavatmal, Wardha, Chandrapur and parts of Gadchiroli, including the 165 Panchayat Samitis under their jurisdiction.

This was followed by polling on Tuesday for Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Pune, Solapur, Nashik, Amravati and parts of Gadchiroli, including the 188 panchayats in their jurisdiction.

The second phase polling on Tuesday also witnessed elections to the municipal corporations of BrihanMumbai, Thane, Ulhasnagar, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nashik, Solapur, Akola, Amravati and Nagpur.

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