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This is an archive article published on February 23, 2017

PCMC Elections 2017: Will NCP keep bastion intact or will the BJP race to glory in high-stakes battle?

Counting of votes, to decide the fate of 773 candidates from 32 panels, will take place on Thursday.

PCMC polls, counting, PCMC polls counting, PCMC elections 2017, pimpri-chinchwad, NCP, shiv sena, BJP, counting today, pune news, indian express news A counting centre at Pimpri-Chinchwad. (Source: Rajesh Stephan)

WILL the BJP, which has left no stone unturned to grab the Pawar family bastion of Pimpri-Chinchwad, succeed in its endeavour? Or will the NCP, which recovered lost ground after being on the backfoot in the initial stages of electioneering, come back to power? Or will the Shiv Sena, in the backdrop of Uddhav Thackeray’s aggressive campaigning, spring a surprise?

Questions like these were being debated among local residents, and in political circles, throughout Wednesday in Pimpri-Chinchwad, a day after the PCMC election witnessed a record turnout of 67 per cent. Counting of votes, to decide the fate of 773 candidates from 32 panels, will take place on Thursday. “The counting will start at 10 am at 11 counting centres. The first result should be out in two hours… all results should be out in 6-7 hours,” said PCMC election department chief Yeshwant Mane.

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A day after the polling — the highest among 10 municipal corporations which went to polls in Maharashtra — major political parties, especially the NCP, BJP and even the Sena, continued to maintain that the high turnout would help them in their bid for power.

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The NCP has been in power in PCMC for 10 years. The BJP claimed that it will win around 70 seats in the 128-member House; it already has one corporator who has been elected unopposed from Bhosari. NCP leaders, meanwhile, presented varying numbers of party candidates who are likely to win.

Trying to strike a balance, the Sena said it will get 35-40 seats, but the party claimed that the NCP, not the BJP, would emerge as the single largest party with 55 seats.

Laxman Jagtap, president of BJP’s Pimpri-Chinchwad unit, said, “The high turnout means voters have chosen us… because of the united front put up by our party leaders, the aggressive campaign against corruption and for good governance, led by the Chief Minister himself, and proper selection of candidates”.

Shiv Sena MP Shrirang Barne said, “The Sena will emerge as the second largest party and the BJP will be pushed to the third position,” he said.

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NCP’s Pimpri-Chinchwad unit president Sanjog Waghere said the large turnout was a “vote for development work carried out by the party”. “We will certainly win 70-72 seats,” he said. Another NCP leader, Yogesh Behl, said the party would win 65-68 seats.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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