Elections were held for 147 of the 195 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in Maharashtra for 3,510 seats. Of them, the BJP won 851 seats. Shiv Sena won 514 seats, while the Congress won 643. NCP was pushed to the fourth position with 638 seats.
Political experts say Fadnavis was able to mobilise the votes of the OBCs and the Dalits who had seething discontent over the Maratha morchas. BJP insiders said that the historic victory has set the tone for all the future local body and municipality elections in the state in the coming three months. The elections to rich and important corporations like Mumbai and Thane will be watched closely by the political pundits.
This year, direct elections were held for the posts of presidents of local bodies. Even in this, the BJP surpassed every other party by huge margins. It won 52 posts of presidents. The Sena won 25. Congress won 22, while NCP managed to win only 17 posts. The elections gave a jolt to some established bigwigs within the BJP, like state president Raosaheb Danve, ministers Vishnu Savra and Pankaja Munde. But some BJP ministers like Sudhir Mungantiwar, Girish Mahajan put up a stellar show in their constituencies. Most of the local bodies won by the BJP are in its stronghold Vidarbha. The party retained its majority in areas where it had made inroads in the 2014 polls.
In the opposition camp, NCP leader Dhananjay Munde singlehandedly helped the party retain majority in Marathwada. In a bitterly fought battle with his cousin and BJP minister Pankaja Munde, he toured the entire region and cashed in on the discontent against her. The BJP was thus completely wiped out from Parli-Vaijanath, Pankaja Munde’s hometown. The party was defeated despite big leaders including Fadnavis holding rallies in the constituency.
Congress’ Patangrao Kadam gave a jolt to NCP in its stronghold Kolhapur in western Maharashtra. Among the big names who lost in their constituency was imprisoned NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal, who has been accused of massive corruption.
‘The local body election campaigning was closely watched by the BJP leadership from New Delhi. The monitoring was done by none other than the party president Amit Shah himself’.
Shiv Sena targets BJP over victory
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray did not leave the opportunity to target the BJP after the results. “The Sena didn’t issue any false promises and didn’t make tall assurances during the poll campaign,” he said after the election results were declared. Sena leaders also said that the local elections were left to the local cadres, and that the party’s senior leadership did not interfere in that.
From 2011 to 2016: A sea change in performance
During the last local government elections in the year 2011, the BJP had won only 396 seats. The NCP, which had won 1,127 seats, lost nearly half of them. The Congress too seems to have lost a lot of ground as it had fared much better in 2011 with 1,111 seats.
It seems that the discontent against the Congress-NCP was cashed in on by both the BJP and the Shiv Sena. They both fought independently. Shiv Sena improved its tally from 363 seats in 2011 to 514 seats during these polls. Another party which surprised everyone with its performance was the Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM. It contested 108 seats, and won 33 of them.
CM campaigned from the front
The local body election campaigning was closely watched by the BJP leadership from New Delhi. The monitoring was done by none other than party president Amit Shah himself, a senior leader said. The responsibility of these elections rested on the shoulders of the Chief Minister who was accused by sceptics within the party as being someone who couldn’t work at the grassroots. After the elections, PM Narendra Modi tweeted saying, “I thank the people of Maharashtra for placing their faith in BJP in local body polls. This is a win for pro-poor & development politics of BJP.”