Proving the exit polls right, the BJP is leading in the municipal corporation polls in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region in the initial rounds of counting that began on Friday morning. The saffron party was performing well in the Nagpur, Chandrapur, Akola, and Amravati corporations.
Of the 151 seats in the Nagpur Municipal Corporation, the BJP was leading in 74, followed by the Congress in 22 and Shiv Sena (UBT) in 2, news agency PTI reported, citing early trends. Nagpur is the home turf of giants including Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari.
The BJP took the lead in 35 of the 80 seats in the Akola civic body, while Congress candidates were ahead in 15 seats. Shiv Sena, led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, was leading in 8 seats, followed by Deputy CM Ajit Pawar's NCP in seven electoral wards, PTI said.
The Congress's Maha Vikas Aghadi partners NCP (SP), headed by Sharad Pawar, and Sena (UBT) of Uddhav Thackeray, were leading in four and three seats, respectively.
In the Amravati Municipal Corporation, which has 87 electoral wards, the BJP was leading in 13, the NCP in seven, and the Congress in five. The Yuva Swabhiman Party of MLA Ravi Rana was leading in two seats.
A few days before polling, the BJP had officially ended its alliance with Rana's party, claiming that it went against their pact, and fielded its own candidates in several wards.
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As per early trends in Chandrapur, the BJP is leading in six seats, the Sena (UBT) in seven, the Congress in two, and the NCP in one. The Chandrapur civic body has 66 seats.
Meanwhile in Thane, Shinde's stronghold, his party was leading in nine of the 131 wards, ahead of ally BJP, which was ahead in six wards, TV channels reported.
Elections to the 29 municipal corporations were held after a gap of several years, with terms for 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.