MUMBAI, MARCH 16: The Shiv Sena's Ramesh Vaity and Meghnath Mhatre were today elected as mayor and deputy mayor of Thane respectively.In the mayoral polls held today, Vaity secured 63 votes, while the Congress candidate Subhash Bhoir bagged 31. The Sena nominee for the deputy mayor's post, Mhatre, got 62 votes, while his Congress opponent Rashmi Koli got 31.The 95-member Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has 39 corporators of the Sena and 10 of the BJP. Six independent corporators have extended their support to the Sena-BJP alliance. Despite the alliance's strength of 55, it succeeded in acquiring eight additional votes in the mayoral elections.The Sena's Thane district chief Anand Dighe claimed that four Congress corporators, some independents supporting the Congress and a Samajwadi Party corporator had voted for the alliance candidate.However, the Congress leader in the corporation Manoj Shinde strongly denied any Congress corporator had cross-voted in favour of the saffron alliance. He saidadditional votes gained by the Sena were secured with the help of Samajawadi Party and Janata Dal corporators. The Janata Dal, on its part, claimed it was only the Congress corporators who had cross-voted. All JD corporators followed the party whip, he pointed out.Vaity is the 14th mayor of the TMC. The mayoral post had this year been reserved for an OBC candidate.
