NCP upbeat about ZP, Panchayat Samiti polls in Pune

Pune, Mar 10 (UNI) Workers of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are upbeat about the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti Elections to be held tomorrow and claimed they would make a clean sweep in both the polls.

NCP leader Vikas Dangat-Patil said NCP was all set to repeat the success of the civic polls in the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti polls.

After touring the district for the past three days with NCP leader and district guardian minister Ajit Pawar, who dominated the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, Dangat-Patil said he believed 50 of the 75 seats of the Zilla Parishad and 100 of the 150 seats of the Panchyat Samiti will go to the NCP.

He said, going by prevailing mood in the rural areas, the NCP is emerging as the main force and a challenge for Congress and Shiv Sena-BJP combine.

Meanwhile, the district administration has made elaborate arrangements for the polls for 75 wards of Pune Zilla Parishad and a total of 150 seats on the 13 Panchyat Samitis in the district.

Campaigns for the polls ended last evening.

During the election campaign, top leaders of various parties including NCP Ajit Pawar, who mainly concentrated on Haveli taluka (as it has the highest number of voters), addressed meetings in Hadapsar, Ahire, Shivne and Uttamnagar for his party candidate.

The Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray held road shows and addressed rallies in different places in rural areas and on the outskirts of Pune. Thackeray had organised a road show in Khed, Ambegaon, Manchar and Narayangaon before ending the election campaign.

Authorities have identified around 123 ''sensitive'' polling centre and 25 ''highly sensitive'' of the total 2,874 polling centres in the district.

UNI