2017 Voter Turnout: 52.17% vote in Mumbai, 53.11% in Thane, 49.52% in Pune
Representational Image. Courtesy: Livemint
Hundreds of thousands voted on Tuesday across Maharashtra to elect 10 major civic bodies, including the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India’s largest and richest civic body.
The Tuesday balloting, also to elect 11 Zilla Parishads and 118 Panchayat Samitis across Maharashtra, is seen as a mini assembly election and a referendum on Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
By 5:30 pm, when the voting process concluded, 52.17 percent of the voters from Mumbai had exercised their right compared to 44.7 percent last year. The number was slightly higher, 53.11 percent, in neighbouring Thane.
The final voter turnout for the ten civic bodies stood at – Mumbai: 52.17%, Thane: 53.11%, Ulhasnagar: 46.83%, Nashik: 52.63%, Pune: 49.52%, Pimpri Chinchwad: 51.86%, Solapur: 44%, Amravati: 51.62%, Akola: 52.39% and Nagpur: 49.95%.
Note: Final voter turnout, which may differ slightly than the aforementioned numbers, will be declared by SEC by end of day. Updated voter turnout and ward-wise split.
Voting in the first few hours averaged around 18 per cent in other civic bodies like Thane, Ulhasnagar, Nashik, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Solapur, Amravati, Akola and Nagpur, Election Commission officials said.
The country’s commercial capital and the richest civic body has generally recorded a dismal voter turnout but this year officials are hopeful of a change.
Controlled by the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for four terms, the BMC has a budget of Rs 37,052 crore for the current year (2016-2017) catering to a population of around 18.30 million.
In comparison, neighbouring Goa’s budget last year was around Rs 14,700 crore.
A generous dose of glamour, glitz and power play was visible in Mumbai at the 7,304 booths to elect 227 BMC corporators from among 2,275 candidates.
Maharashtra Election Commissioner J.S. Saharia was among the early voters.
And so were Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar, his daughter Supriya Pawar, Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena President Raj Thackeray.
Mumbai Congress President Sanjay Nirupam, Mumbai BJP President Ashish Shelar, Mumbai NCP President Sachin Ahir, Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta, outgoing mayor Snehal Ambekar and former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi also voted by noon.
Chief Minister Fadnavis and his wife Amruta voted in Nagpur. So did Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.
Among the Bollywood personalities who voted — and asked everyone to vote too — were Rekha, Prem Chopra, Kamini Kaushal, Ranveer Singh, Anushka Sharma, Shraddha Kapoor, John Abraham and Shreyas Talpade, renowned poet Gulzar and filmmaker Subhash Ghai. Several tv serial actors and Marathi film stars too exercised their franchise.
Others like actor Varun Dhawan, director Anubhav Sinha and chef Sanjeev Kapoor, however, were unable to cast their vote as their names did not appear in the voter list.
Two nervous grooms in wedding attire, Ankit Lende from Colaba and Mahesh Navale from Parel, voted before proceeding for their marriage rituals. People at the polling booths cheered and complimented them.
An electorate of 3.77 crore shall decide the fate of 17,331 candidates for 5,512 seats, including 1,268 in 10 municipal corporations, 2,956 in 11 Zilla Parishads and 1,288 seats in 118 Panchayat Samitis.
A total of 43,160 polling booths have come up in the state. The results will be declared on Thursday (February 23).
With IANS inputs
