In Maharashtra, 98.59 percent polling was registered in the biennial elections held for seven seats of the Local Bodies' Constituencies to elect new members of State Legislative Council on Sunday.
With Bharatiya Janata Party state unit spokesman Girish Vyas already getting elected unopposed to Legislative Council from Nagpur Local Bodies Constituency, the elections were conducted for remaining seven seats of the Self-Government Bodies.
Members of respective municipal corporations, nagar parishad and panchayats, zilla parishads and panchayat samitis participated in voting in the Local Bodies Constituencies in Maharashtra.
In all, 98.59 percent representatives exercised their franchise on this occasion. While cent per cent polling was registered in Kolhapur constituency, the lowest 87.39 percent was recorded in Mumbai constituency.
With this, the fate of fifteen candidates in fray for the seven seats has been sealed in the ballot boxes and the counting of votes would be taken up on Wednesday at various locations. The term of outgoing Legislative Council members ends on the ensuing Friday i.e. January1. They include four Congress members and two each from Shivsena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
For the two seats in Mumbai, there were three candidates in fray, including State Environment Minister Ramdas Kadam of the Shiv Sena and Bhai Jagtap of the Congress along with NCP rebel candidate Prasad Lad.
In case of the Akola-Washim-Buldhana seat, there was a straight contest between sitting member Gopikishan Bajoria of Shivsena and Ravi Sapkal of the NCP, while it was also a direct fight between the sitting Congress member Amrish Patel and Dr. Shashikant Wani of BJP in Dhule-Nandurbar Constituency.
Sitting member Mahadev Mahadik, who was contesting as an Independent supported by the BJP, vied with Satej Patil of the Congress for the Kolhapur seat.
In Solapur, Deepak Salunke of the NCP faced Prashant Paricharak, an Independent backed by the BJP and Shiv Sena.
In addition, Arun Jagtap of the NCP and Shashikant Gade of the Shiv Sena were engaged in the electoral battle for the Ahmednagar seat.
