BMC goes to Shiv Sena-BJP, NCP leads in Pune

The Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena combine is set to retain their dominance in the Mumbai civic polls, moving ahead of the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance.
In what comes as a major setback for the Congress and the NCP, the BJP-Sena alliance is set to take control of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the richest civic body of the country, with the help of independents.
The ruling alliance is also set to retain power in the Thane Municipal Corporation with the help of independents.
Elated by the performance of his party in the BMC polls, Uddhav Thackeray said that it was a "huge victory for the Shiv Sena".
He, however, refrained from making any comment on the performance of his estranged cousin Raj Thackeray and his party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).
Meanwhile, in Pune, the NCP is likely to emerge as the single largest party, but will be able to take the control of the civic body only with the help of the Congress.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari also saved his face in hometown Nagpur with his party leading over the Congress and the NCP.
The MNS, however, did not manage to shine much in the polls, as it was way behind the BJP-Shiv Sena combine and the Congress-NCP alliance according to the final trends.
As soon as the final leads began to suggest their surge ahead of the opposition parties, an elated Shiv Sena, which has kept the control of the BMC since 1996, began celebrating their win.
Shiv Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut said, "Mumbai has voted for Shiv Sena."
MNS chief Raj Thackeray, however, made an attempt to put the blame on the low voter turnout. He said, "The Election Commission should do something about people who do not vote."
Talking about the good performance of his arch rival Shiv Sena, Thackeray said, "Shiv Sena has been saved by the BJP."
The leads/results certainly came as a big setback for Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who had earlier claimed that Shiv Sena and its leader Bal Thackeray would be rendered irrelevant once the results were out.
Chavan had suggested that the Congress-NCP combine was banking on Raj Thackeray's MNS, which they expected would cut into the votes of the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance.
This was the first civic elections in Mumbai where the Congress was contesting in an alliance with the NCP.
What had prompted Chavan to cobble together an alliance with NCP for the Mumbai civic body poll was the fact that in the last elections, the votes polled by the Congress and NCP, which had then contested the BMC poll separately, if added, would have yielded 132 seats. "Hence, getting a simple majority of 114 seats in the 227-member BMC should not be difficult," Chavan had said.
Meanwhile, according to the leads on all the 227 seats in the BMC, the BJP-Shiv Sena combine has bagged 106 seats, which is just 8 short of the majority, the Congress-NCP is slated to win on 66 seats, while the MNS and others are likely to get 28 and 27 seats respectively.