BMC Results: LIVE updates of BMC election 2017 results
Live updates of BMC election 2017 results
The Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) on Wednesday morning began the process of counting votes for the all important Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and nine other municipal elections held on February 21.
The counting process will be done in the presence of candidates, their counting agents and a state supervisor. 23 election officers, 23 assistant election officers and close to a thousand BMC employees will carry out the process.
Update: Ward-wise list of winning parties and candidates
The counting process began at 10 am and according to an election supervisor, the first set of results will be declared by 12 noon and the overall results of all the 227 wards before 2 pm.
Live Results of BMC elections 2017:
Note: TMC results are covered at the end
About the BMC:
Controlled by the Shiv Sena and BJP for four terms, the BMC has a budget of Rs 37,052 crore for the current year (2016-2017) and caters to a population of around 18.30 million. It is the richest civic body in the country.
Over 92 lakh citizens were eligible to vote for electing 227 BMC corporators from among 2,275 candidates. The SEC spent over Rs 95 crore on the BMC elections.
Present corporation:
In the present corporation, elected in 2012, Shiv Sena has 75 seats followed by Congress (52), BJP (31), NCP (7), MNS (27), SP (9) and others (32).
The ruling Sena and BJP, who have been in power for over two decades, failed to form an alliance this time after the latter declined to accept the number of seats offered by Sena.
The stakes are high for both CM Devendra Fadnavis and Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, who led their respective parties from the front. Their fallout set the stage for a high-voltage electioneering that saw countless mudslinging contests, allegations and rebuttals.
Voter turnout:
Although the country’s commercial capital and the richest civic body has generally recorded a dismal voter turnout, the 2017 polls saw unprecedented rise in numbers, with 55 percent of the eligible population casting their vote.
The turnout was the highest since the last five elections or 25 years.
Read: Ward-wise split of voter turnout for BMC polls.
Exit poll:
The Axis-My India exit poll, carried by India Today, put Shiv Sena and BJP at the forefront.
According to the poll, Shiv Sena is expected to get 86-90 seats, and BJP 80-88 seats. Both will each get 32 percent of the votes. Congress may get 30-34 seats with a vote share of 16 percent, while NCP and MNS are expected to get single digit seats.
Although parties like Congress, NCP, MNS, SP and MIM are also in the fray, the election is being viewed as a two-way contest between the former allies.
Even in the first phase of the civic elections in Maharashtra, held last week, BJP made significant progress by breaking Congress and NCP’s traditional vote bank. Sena also fared well.
What’s at stake:
Apart from running the country’s commercial capital, the fate of the Maharashtra State Government also hangs in the balance.
Sena, who is the junior partner in the state, put the BJP-led state government on ‘notice period’ after the alliance fell through. Since the saffron party needs Sena to have a majority in the house, its withdrawal may pave the way for mid-term elections in the state.
CM Fadnavis, however, seems undeterred by Sena’s threat of pulling the plug on the state government and is confident of winning a majority in BMC. He also said said that his government will complete the full five year term, irrespective of the civic poll results.
Possibilities and tie-ups:
If either Sena or BJP emerge as the single largest party, with close to 100 seats, they might take the help of independent candidates to claim a majority. However, if both parties manage 80 or less seats, they might form a post-poll alliance.
Incidentally, even last year, the parties had contested the Kalyan-Dombivli corporation polls separately, but formed an alliance after the polls. Congress and NCP also ended their decade old alliance and are likely to remain separated.
MNS, SP and MIM might be viable options for Sena or BJP to partner with, provided they win over 30 seats.
Controversies:
The names of many of voters, including those who had voted during the last Assembly Elections, were missing from the polling booths at Andheri, Borivali, Malad, Dahisar, Ghatkopar, Mulund, Kurla, Mankhurd, Worli, Dadar, Byculla, Colaba and Bandra.
According to some reports, the number of missing names is as high as 12 lakh, roughly 13 percent of the total eligible voters. Although the SEC has taken cognizance of the matter, it has not clarified how many and why the names were missing.
Some political observers have noted that the increase in voter turnout could be due to the missing names, which essentially reduced the total number of eligible voters.
Other polls:
Apart from Mumbai, the municipal corporations of Thane, Ulhasnagar, Nashik, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Solapur, Akola, Amravati and Nagpur, along with 11 Zilla Parishads and 118 panchayat samiti polls, also went to polls on February 21.
Their results will also be declared today.
TMC Results:
