Mumbai, Jan 16 : The BJP and ally Shiv Sena were ahead in high-stakes Mumbai municipal corporation elections as per trends in 210 of 227 wards, after counting of votes began Friday morning.There was no official confirmation from the State Election Commission, but TV channels said the BJP was leading in 92 wards in Mumbai, while Shiv Sena, led by Deputy CM Eknath Shinde, was ahead in 26 wards. Going by the trends, the Mahayuti alliance is poised to cross the majority mark of 114 needed to wrest power in the BMC. The Congress, with its ally Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi has wrested power in Latur Municipal Corporation, channels reported. The counting of votes began at 10 am.

The Thackeray cousins, who reunited after two decades ahead of Thursday's poll, were behind the ruling alliance in Mumbai, with the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena-UBT ahead in 60 wards and Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) ahead in 9 seats. In Thane, Shinde's stronghold, his party was leading in 18 of the 131 wards, ahead of ally BJP which was ahead in 10 wards, TV channels reported. In Pune, the BJP has left NCP way behind.  It was leading in 43 seats, followed by the Congress on 7, the NCP on 5 and the NCP (SP) on 3 seats. In Pimpri Chinchwad, the BJP was leading in 70 seats, while the NCP, led by Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, was leading in 40 seats. Both the parties contested the polls in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad elections independently.

Exit polls have predicted a sweep for the ruling Mahayuti alliance in the elections to 29 municipal corporations held on Thursday. A voter turnout of 52.94 per cent was recorded in the Mumbai civic polls, down from 55.53 per cent in the last elections in 2017, officials said on Friday. In the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), whose annual budget is over Rs 74, 400 crore, elections were held after a four-year delay. In a significant political turn of events ahead of the elections, Uddhav and Raj Thackeray reunited last month even as rival NCP factions forged a local alliance in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.

Elections to the 29 municipal corporations were held on January 15 after a gap of several years, with terms of most of them having ended between 2020 and 2023. Of these, nine fall in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), the most urbanised belt in India. Voting took place in these municipal corporations: Mumbai, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Solapur, Amravati, Akola, Nashik, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Ulhasnagar, Thane, Chandrapur, Parbhani, Mira-Bhayandar, Nanded-Waghala, Panvel, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Latur, Malegaon, Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad, Jalgaon, Ahilyanagar, Dhule, Jalna and Ichalkaranji. 

/Agencies