Municipal council and nagar panchayat poll results today, why are they important for BJP, Shiv Sena and opp parties?

Votes polled on Saturday will be counted along with those cast earlier, with results for a total of 246 municipal councils and 42 nagar panchayats to be announced together.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and the Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena aggressively campaigned throughout the elections, many a time against each other.

New allies join hands, others split

The elections have also seen the split of existing alliances and the formation of new ones.

Mahayuti partners, the BJP and the Shiv Sena, have fielded candidates against each other in many districts like Sindhudurg, Satara, Dharashiv, Palghar and Thane. On the other hand, the two warring factions of the NCP–one led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and the other by party founder Sharad Pawar–have joined forces in Kolhapur. In a few other places, factions of the Congress have joined hands with the BJP.

In most places of Vidarbha, Fadnavis’s backyard, the BJP and Congress are in direct contest with each other. The CM has deployed a team of senior leaders, including state Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule, to oversee the campaign here.

The BJP has fielded candidates in all 27 cities of the region, while the Congress is contesting in 22, and is in a direct fight with the BJP in 18 cities. The Shiv Sena is contesting in 13 cities, while the Shiv Sena (UBT) is contesting in eight. The NCP (SP) has put up candidates in six cities while rival NCP is contesting in seven, resulting in triangular fights at several places.

The run-up to the polls also saw a war of words between leaders of the BJP and Sena, prompting Shinde to advise his partners “to follow alliance dharma”. Fadnavis, however, expressed confidence that the Mahayuti will emerge victorious in 70 to 75 per cent of the seats.

The results will be seen as a referendum on political flexing shown by all political parties, as well as turncoats who have jumped seeing greener pastures. In addition, the results will give a boost to the victor while going into a bigger fight of municipal corporations and later into the Zilla Parishad polls.

While the Mahayuti leaders—Fadnavis, Shinde and Ajit–have extensively campaigned for the polls, addressing five-six rallies daily, only the Congress was seen extensively canvassing from the Opposition side.

While Maharashtra Congress chief Harshavardhan Sapkal campaigned in Vidarbha and Marathwada, other Congress leaders like Satej Patil, Amit Deshmukh and Yashomati Thakur focused on their strongholds of Kolhapur, Latur and Amravati, respectively.

While Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and NCP(SP) chief Sharad Pawar chose to stay away from campaigning, NCP(SP) MLA Rohit Pawar and state chief Shashikant Shinde restricted their campaigns to their respective strongholds.