Total 3,546 nomination filed for BMC's 227 seats

Mumbai, Jan 15 (UNI) The Stage is set for a multi-cornered contest in the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election even as the filing of nominations closed today, with the ruling coalition partners in the state, Congress and NCP, releasing their separate list of candidates for all the 227 seats.

A total of 3,546 nominations were filed for BMC's 227 seats.

The Shiv Sena-BJP combine, which are ruling the Corporation, having an annual budget of about Rs 10,000 crore, for last two decades, is again contesting election in alliance with each other.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), led by Raj Thackeray, nephew of Sena Chief Bal Thackeray, and some other parties including the ruling state coalition partner RPI (Athavale) and large number of Independent candidates are also in the fray.

The Sena has dropped 58 sitting Corporators, which include Mayor Datta Dalvi. The party has given maximum of 38 per cent reservation to women in the list of 155 candidates which was released today. Its alliance partner BJP also released its list of 72 candidates.

An electorate of 83.88 lakh will exercise their franchise for the election, out of the total population of 1.19 crore of the metropolis. A total of 23,81,353 electorate are from the city, 36,27,052 from Western suburbs and 23,80,050 from eastern suburbs. Scrutiny and valid candidates' list would be announced on January 16 and last date of withdrawal is on January 19. symbols would be allocated to the candidates on January 20 and final list of candidates and list of polling booth would be announced on January 22 for the February one polls.

For the smooth conduct of elections, six IAS officials will do overall supervision with assistance of over 40,000 employees.

UNI