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Mumbai civic polls: BJP announces first list of 70 candidates; counting set for January 16
The list includes several sitting corporators who had won the BMC elections in 2017.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday announced its first list of 70 candidates for the upcoming elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), a day before the deadline for filing nominations.
The list includes several sitting corporators who had won the BMC elections in 2017. One of the prominent names is Navnath Ban, the BJP’s Maharashtra state media chief. At 38, Ban is the youngest candidate named in the first list. He will contest from ward number 135 in the Shivajinagar area, PTI reported
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Elections to 29 municipal corporations across Maharashtra, including the crucial Mumbai civic body, are scheduled to be held on January 15. The counting of votes will take place on January 16.
In the 2017 BMC elections, held for 227 seats, the BJP had made major gains in Mumbai, which was considered a stronghold of the Shiv Sena at the time. The party won 82 seats, finishing just two seats behind the undivided Shiv Sena.
The Congress secured 31 seats to finish third, while the undivided Nationalist Congress Party won nine seats. Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena managed seven seats. AIMIM made its debut by winning three seats, while the Samajwadi Party secured six seats. The Akhil Bhartiya Sena won one seat, and independent candidates won four.
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Meanwhile, a total of 357 nomination papers were filed on Monday, the second-to-last day for submissions. This took the overall number of nominations filed so far to 401, officials said.
(With PTI inputs)
