Voters favour Congress-NCP in Municipal polls

Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Nov 20 (UNI) The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance has suffered a major setback in their stronghold -- Marathwada-- as Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) winning a majority of the seats in the municipal council elections.

According to the election results of the 38 of the total 40 municipal councils of the Marathwada, the Congress was in a position to elect its president at least in 17 places while its ally, the NCP was capable of doing so in ten municipal councils so far.

Counting in Georai and Kalamnuri in Marathwada would be taken up tomorrow and on November 24 respectively, official sources said here.

Like the Congress-NCP, the Sena-BJP did not forge a serious alliance for the municipal elections in the region. Except few seats, these parties have contested elections on their own.

Talking to UNI over the party's defeat in the elections, Shiv Sena Deputy Leader and MP Chandrakant Khaire said, ''I have accepted the defeat, and I take it as my personal defeat and not of the party and of our top leaders such as Balasahaeb Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray.'' Mr Khaire alleged that the Congress-led Democratic Front (DF) government's ministers' campaign in several constituencies as well as the money matters played a key role in party's defeat.

According to the details of the election results available at the divisional commissionerate here, of the total 884 seats from 40 municipal councils of the Marathwada region comprised of eight districts, Congress had won 297 seats followed by NCP 265, Shiv Sena 126, BJP 77, Independents 70 and others 50.

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