Mumbai, February 9 The BJP and its Mahayuti ally, the Shiv Sena, were leading their rivals in the early trends of the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti elections in Maharashtra as counting of votes began on Monday morning.
The Bharatiya Janata Party had established an early lead in 26 seats of the Zilla Parishads, while Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena was ahead in 13, according to TV channels. However, there was no official confirmation yet from the State Election Commission.
The NCP was leading in 13 seats, followed by the Congress in 10, and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) in 6.
The counting began at 10 am for elections to 12 Zilla Parishads and 125 Panchayat Samitis.
The elections were held on Saturday in 12 Zilla Parishads – Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Solapur, Kolhapur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Parbhani, Dharashiv, and Latur – to elect 731 members, along with 1,462 seats in 125 Panchayat Samitis under their jurisdiction. A total of 2,624 candidates contested the Zilla Parishad polls, and 4,814 candidates were in the fray for the Panchayat Samiti elections.
The results are expected to shape the future course for the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) factions of late Ajit Pawar and party founder Sharad Pawar.
The two factions had set aside their bitter two-year rivalry to contest these local body polls in an informal alliance in Pune, Satara, Solapur, and Sangli, where candidates from both sides contested under the original 'clock' symbol.