Mumbai:
Counting of votes for the ten municipal corporations across Maharashtra will begin today. As important cities like Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur elect their civic bodies, these elections are being fought as mini-Assembly polls. The counting of votes will start at 7.30 a.m. in municipal corporation of Thane, while in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad it will start at 8 a.m. The counting in other corporations will start at 9 a.m.
In all the 10 Maharashtra municipal corporations, where voting took place yesterday, the average voter turnout was around 54 per cent.
A total of 3.5 crore voters were registered to elect 1,244 councillors, including 624 women, in Mumbai, Thane, Ulhasnagar, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Solapur, Nashik, Akola, Amravati and Nagpur municipal corporations.
Yesterday, Mumbai witnessed a poor turnout of only 46 per cent, even as the battle for India's richest civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), is the most fiercely contested. The BMC has an annual budget of Rs 20,000 crore and its policies have huge impact on daily life in the financial capital - like Mumbai.
While the ruling Shiv Sena is fighting to retain its last bastion, the Congress-NCP have tied up for civic polls for the first time. Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, is pegged as a dark horse, and seen as the likely kingmaker in what many say could be a neck-on-neck contest.
According to officials of the state election commission, Solapur, Nashik and Amravati municipal corporations recorded the highest voter turnout at 58 per cent.
Akola was a close second at 57 per cent.
Thane registered a voter turnout of 52 per cent while Ulhasnagar municipal corporation in Thane district registered a voter turnout of a mere 43 per cent.
Pune registered a turnout of 53 per cent while the adjoining Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporation registered a turnout of 56 per cent. Nagpur registered a turnout of 55 per cent.
(With IANS Inputs)