BMC Polls Early Trends: Mahayuti Surge, Thackerays Lag Behind

Mumbai: Early trends being reported from the counting of votes in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections on Friday showed the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena Mahayuti alliance leading in around 75 wards as of 11 am, based on preliminary data.

According to the data being reported, the BJP leads in 49 seats, and the Shiv Sena leads in 26. This means that the Fadnavis led BJP is currently batting at a strike rate of 36% having contested 135 wards.

Shinde's Sena is batting at a strike rate of 29% having contested 90 wards.Shiv Sena (UBT) is reported to be leading in 40 seats.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), led by Raj Thackeray, is currently leading in 8 seats. The Congress has 7 leads from the initial count, while Ajit Pawar's NCP faction has 1 lead. Meanwhile, official trends from the BMC's electoral offices show the Bharatiya Janata Party leading in 9 wards, followed by Shiv Sena with 3 leads, Shiv Sena (UBT) has leades in 4 wards while AIMIM leads in two wards as counting for the 227 BMC seats is underway.

Meanwhile, the recently concluded Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) recorded a voter turnout of 52.94 per cent, according to the data released by the State Election Commissioner (SEC) today.

The elections for India's richest municipal corporations, which concluded on Thursday, were marred by allegations by the Shiv Sena (UBT)- MNS alliance, and subsequently refuted by the SEC.

The elections, which were conducted after a gap of eight years, marked a significant civic exercise for Mumbai. The previous BMC elections were held in 2017, while the term of the last elected mayor, Kishori Pednekar, ended in March 2022.

With the completion of the polls, Mumbai is set to get a new mayor after nearly four years.

Out of the total 1,03,44,315 voters in the electoral roll, a total of 54,76,043 exercised their right to vote. In total numbers of voters, around 3.7 lakh men exercised their franchise compared to women. A total of 29,23,433 men voted across the 277 wards, 25,52,359 women, and 251 transgender electors also cast their votes.

The exit polls have predicted a victory for the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, with the Thackeray brothers finishing second and Congress and its allies failing to put up a strong show.

In the 2017 elections, the undivided Shiv Sena had secured 84 seats out of the total 227. While being in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party at that point, the alliance had secured the halfway mark of 114 seats, with the BJP winning 82 seats.