55% voter turnout was recorded in BMC Elections held on Tuesday.
Minutes after voting ended in Mumbai on Tuesday, the Shiv Sena and BJP rushed to claim a tide in their favour going by the turnout for the polls to the country's richest civic body. In Mumbai, the polling percentage was 55%, more than 45% turnout of 2012.
Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant said "a massive" turnout in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls means there is a "big wave" against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his demonetization exercise. "The massive voter turnout indicates that people are with the Shiv Sena and there is a big wave against Modi and demonetization that caused endless hardship to people. The Sena is the only choice of people," Sawant said.
"The way Uddhavji addressed his rallies, full of passion, aggression and concern for people, has touched the minds and hearts of people. This prompted them to vote for the party in large numbers," he added.
Sawant said the BJP wanted to obliterate the Sena but people have "something else" in mind. "Higher voter turnout means people are yearning for a change and they are in our favour. We had appointed people at booth levels to draw out voters from their homes," said BJP spokesperson Madhav Bhandari.
He said his party will file a complaint with the State Election Commission to ascertain if there was "deliberate mischief" in removing names of voters from electoral rolls.
Bhandari said there was a big confusion in the voting list or else the turnout would have gone up to 60%. "We want to know if somebody indulged in deliberate mischief and deleted names of voters from the rolls. We will file a complaint with the SEC and demand an inquiry to ascertain if this was deliberately done," he said. "Names of about 12 lakh voters were found to be missing from the list," Bhandari claimed.
BJP's Mumbai unit chief Ashish Shelar also expressed confidence that his party will win 114 seats in the elections. "When voting goes up, it is always anti-incumbency. BJP won maximum 16 seats in the city during assembly election in 2014 the turnout of voters at that time was 54% then. This time also the voting turnout is expected to be 53% and I need not say anything more," Shelar said.
"BJP does have a strong cadre on ground and we utilised them in an effective manner. Our workers followed up with the voters and ensured that they (people) vote," Shelar said. "There were some challenges of missing of names, change in wards and the change in polling stations; but people still came out and voted," he said.
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