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Maharashtra Civic polls 2017: BJP dominates across state, Shiv Sena leads in BMC

The Sena has already warned that it has put the BJP on “notice” in what is perceived to be a threat to quit its governments at the Centre and state.

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Smashing long-held bastions of the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) surged to the dominant position in most of the urban civic bodies, results for which were declared on Thursday. However, despite its impressive gains in cities like Pune, Nagpur, Akola, Amravati and Solapur, the cherry on the cake—the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation—became a closely fought race with its estranged ally the Shiv Sena, with the latter leading by a whisker nin the country’s richest civic body.

The BJP also fared poorly compared to the Shiv Sena in the Greater Mumbai urban agglomeration with the latter coming up trumps in Thane and Ulhasnagar, where the BJP had joined hands with controversial local strongman Pappu Kalani’s son Omi.

The results come as a relief for Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis who led the charge almost single-handedly across the state, including in Mumbai and Thane. However, the Shiv Sena may use its dominance in Mumbai and Thane, which together account for 60 seats in the state assembly’s bench strength, to assert itself even more against its senior ally in the state government.

The Sena, which is part of the Narendra Modi and Fadnavis-led dispensations, has already warned that it has put the BJP on “notice” in what is perceived to be a threat to quit the governments.  

While emerging as the single-largest political formation in Pune, the BJP, which was badly splintered among factions, almost snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. It also smashed the Raj Thackeray-led MNS to sail close to the half-way mark in Nashik.

The party also made substantial gains in the Solapur municipal corporation, which is the stronghold of senior Congress leader and former chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde, and has a strong presence of the Muslim community. The BJP also won convincingly in Nagpur, which is the hometown of Fadnavis’ and union surface transport minister Nitin Gadkari, and captured other civic bodies in the Vidarbha region like Akola and Amravati.

On the flip side, while the BJP made gains in Mumbai, it fell short in its ambition of unseating the Sena from power in the country’s largest civic body. The BJP, which had drawn many NCP leaders and defectors into its fold in Pimpri Chinchwad, also lost to the party which had seen former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar throw his weight into the contest.

A senior BJP leader noted that the factor which had worked most for them was the lack of a strong, credible opposition, with the people yet to get over the anger against 15 years of rule by the Congress and NCP.

“The opposition is weak so the people decide to trust us. Another factor which could have gone in our favour was the fact that people could have chosen the BJP at the local level since the party is in power at the Centre and the state,” he said, admitting that the results had belied their fears about the rural voters punishing the party over demonetisation.

The internal fights and factionalism in the Congress and NCP could have also helped, said the BJP leader. Party leaders also claim that projecting Modi and Fadnavis may have helped draw in first-time, young, urban and aspirational voters who tend to side with those parties promising development rather than identity politics.

The huge silent morchas organised by the Marathas for demands like quotas in jobs and education could also have led to a reverse polarisation by non-Marathas, especially the upwardly mobile and assertive OBCs, for the BJP.

A Shiv Sena source admitted that the party was overtly fixated with Mumbai and Thane and had chosen to focus on the belt at the cost of expansion in other areas which may have led to some of its core and auxilliary voters drifting to the BJP. “The Congress and NCP leaders too were fixated on their pocket-boroughs. For instance, Ajit Pawar directed his attention to Pimpri- Chinchwad than other areas,” he noted.  

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