Pune: While there’s no denying that the BJP tsunami in the municipal corporations of western Maharashtra washed away hopes of any resurgence of other political players, a look at the vote shares of the important Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) elections show that the party’s vote-share is not as impressive as its thumping win.
Despite the BJP winning an unprecedented 98 of the 162 seats in the PMC poll, it secured only around 37% of the total number of votes cast. The party put up candidates on 159 seats.
According to data released by the election department, a total of 58,04, 635 votes were cast to elect 162 corporators across 41 panels. Despite nearly 27 lakh registered voters, voter turnout in the PMC poll was disappointing at 55.56%, as compared to the turnout witnessed in the PCMC poll (67%).
Of this, the BJP secured 21,28,452 votes.
Sena impressive
In contrast, the Shiv Sena, secured more than 14% of the total votes, despite winning a mere 10 seats. The Sena polled 8,23,744 votes, fielding 149 candidates.
While the BJP’s win may have comprehensively routed Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in both the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad civic bodies, the NCP in fact managed to take a decent share of the total votes cast.
The party secured 39 seats and polled 12,73,524 votes, which constitutes around 22% of the total votes cast.
The NCP had contested only 129 of the total seats in the PMC, leaving the rest to the Congress with whom it had struck an eleventh-hour alliance before the PMC poll.
The Congress, which only won 11 seats, polled a little more than 5 lakh votes (8.63% of the total vote share).
MNS routed
The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which had notched up an impressive performance in the last PMC poll securing the second spot, was humbled this time around, managing barely two seats.
It secured 3,73,645 votes from the 116 seats the party contested on, forming 6.44% of the total vote share.
The Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), which cornered the Congress’ and NCP’s minority votes, polled nearly 74,000 votes (1.26 % of the total vote share) despite winning only one seat.
Furthermore, the party contested only 21 seats in the PMC poll. According to AIMIM state co-ordinator Anjum Inamdar, the party’s performance in the polls to the 10 municipal corporations far outshone that of the MNS.
The AIMIM secured a total 26 seats in elections to these civic bodies, as compared to the MNS, which managed to win a bare 15 seats.
Deposits lost
Data also reveals that as many as 640 of the total 1,090 candidates (a whopping 59%) in the PMC election fray forfeited their deposits, failing to secure even the mandatory one-eighth of the total votes cast in their respective wards.
The maximum number of candidates who lost their deposits (as many as 86) were from the MNS, followed, surprisingly, by the Shiv Sena (69). 40 Congress and 16 NCP candidates lost theirs, while only five BJP candidates forfeited deposits.
Except the Solapur Municipal Corporation, where it narrowly missed securing a total majority, the BJP scored landslide wins in the municipal corporations of Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad and Nashik in western Maharashtra.
