Sena's hat-trick in BMC; Congress suffers setback

Mumbai, Feb 2 (UNI) The Shiv Sena scored a hat-trick, retaining its bastions in Mumbai and Thane, though the party has lost some ground in terms of seats.

The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance has captured 111 seats in the 227-member Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), falling three seats short of a simple majority. The Shiv Sena has bagged 83 wards while the BJP has won 28 wards.

The saffron combine is unlikely to face any hurdle in electing the mayor. At least three rebel candidates have won as independents, according to sources.

On the other hand, the Congress, whose dreams of wresting power in the BMC were dashed, has improved its tally from to 71 from 64. The NCP has maintained its seat tally of 14, while the Samajwadi Party has doubled its tally to eight from the previous four. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has bagged seven seats, independents have won in nine wards, BSP - one, and others have won five seats. Repolling has been ordered in one booth, to be held on Sunday. The repolling has been necessitated due to the use of faulty electronic voting machines there.

The prestigious BMC is the richest civic body in Asia with a whopping annual budget of Rs 12,000 crore.

The Shiv Sena, which has been in turmoil over the last two years owing to the exit of two of its stalwarts -- Narayan Rane and Raj Thackeray, however has reasons to rejoice since the exit of the two leaders does not seem to have adversely affected the party either in Mumbai or Thane.

Apart from Mumbai and Thane, the Sena-BJP alliance has also gained the upper hand in Nagpur. The NCP, on the other hand, holds complete sway over the industrialised Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC). The Congress, which did not ally with the NCP in any of the municipal corporations barring Akola, suffered a major setback and the party will not be able to come to power on its own in any of the civic bodies.

A post-poll alliance could work out between the NCP and the Congress in Amrawati, Akola and Solapur. However, NCP general secretary Gurunath Kulkarni has made it clear that his party will have no truck with the Congress in Pune as the NCP had contested the elections there on the issue of Congress 'mismanagement' in the PMC under the stewardship of Lok Sabha member Suresh Kalmadi.

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UNI