Pune: Union Minister Murlidhar Mohol on January 16, Friday celebrated a BJP ‘clean sweep’ in the Pune local body polls while claiming that Punekars voted on the basis of the party’s sole agenda, that of development. “What does the future hold? In whose hands is it safe? It looks like that Punekar’s have voted on the basis of ‘vichar, pragati, vikas aur bhavishya'(thoughts, prosperity, development and the future). That is what I think is the basis people have voted(for us), under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With the trends, it looks like the BJP will lead the government”, the BJP leader and Union Minister told reporters.
“The trends coming before us make it seem that be it Pune or Pimpri-Chinchwad, BJP will do a clean sweep. BJP contests on just one agenda, that of development. We had the leadership of PM Modi and CM Fadnavis over the issue of development”, he added. According to reported trends, BJP is leading in 90 out of the 165 seats in Pune Municipal Corporation(PMC), whereas the Pawar-Pawar combo failed to materialise support, staying at 20 seats till now. The Congress-Shiv Sena (UBT) alliance has managed to only lead in 10 seats till now, whereas the Eknath Shinde led Shiv Sena stood at 2 seats.
Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena alliance has managed to extend its lead in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections as reported early trends show the BJP emerging as the single largest party with leads in 98 seats. With the BJP-SS alliance leading in 128 seats, Shiv Sena is leading in 30. Meanwhile the Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS-NCP(SP) alliance seems to have halted in its tracks for now with leads in only 68 wards. While the UBT leads in the alliance with 59 seats, MNS has managed to stay ahead in 9, whereas NCP SP has not managed to secure a lead in any of the seats.
The elections for Mumbai’s Municipal Corporation were conducted after a gap of eight years, marking a significant civic exercise for Mumbai. The previous BMC elections were held in 2017, while the term of the last elected mayor, Kishori Pednekar, ended in March 2022. With the completion of the polls, Mumbai is set to get a new mayor after nearly four years.
(With Inputs from ANI)
