Civic bypolls: Sena wins in Mumbai

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday suffered another setback in the civic body bypolls across the state, losing five out of the seven seats in five districts,

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday suffered another setback in the civic body bypolls across the state, losing five out of the seven seats in five districts, including Mumbai, against candidates of the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on Friday.

HT Image

The BJP has suffered electoral reverses in all elections held after the state Assembly polls four months ago. Of the seven seats, the BJP won two, Congress one, Shiv Sena two, NCP one and others bagged one seat.

Sena’s Vitthal Lokare managed to win ward no. 141 seat in Mankhurd in the civic by-elections conducted on Thursday. Lokare secured 4,427 votes against BJP’s Dinesh Panchal 3,042. The seat was won by Lokare in the 2017 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election on a Congress ticket. He recently resigned from the party and the corporator’s post, defected to the Sena and contested the Assembly elections, but lost. He again contested the civic bypolls, this time on a Sena ticket. The Congress had fielded their candidate, Altaf Qazi, but he could secure only 708 votes. Local NCP workers helped the Sena win the by-election to defeat the BJP, said NCP leaders in the civic body.

With Lokare’s win, the Sena’s total strength in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has reached 95, the BJP is still the second largest party in the BMC with 85 corporators, whereas the Congress stands at 29. Even though the Sena, Congress and NCP are allies in the MVA government, their stand on power-sharing in the BMC is still not clear.

The BJP secured its seats in Nagpur and Panvel. The Nagpur bypoll was necessitated by the death of BJP corporator Jagdish Gwalbanshi in 2019. BJP’s Vikram Gwalbanshi won the seat by almost 10,000 votes. In Panvel, Ruchita Londhe from BJP was elected by a margin of 3,800 votes, against MVA candidate Swapnal Kurghode. The election was held after the death of sitting BJP corporator Mugdha Londhe, Ruchita’s mother, in an accident.

The Sena, Congress and NCP came together in the Nashik civic body, where NCP’s Jagdish Pawar and Sena’s Madhukar Jadhav were elected with a safe margin.

In Muslim-dominated Malegaon civic body, the Janta Dal and AIMIM had fielded Mustaqeem Ahmed in alliance. Ahmed won the seat with 7,992 votes, defeating Congress’s Farooq Qureshi. In Latur , Congress’s Vikas Waghmare beat Nikhil Gaikwad of BJP by a margin of 726 votes.

(Inputs from G. Mohiuddin Jeddy)