23 February,2017 05:10 PM IST | | Team Mid-Day
Even as the BJP doubled its seat tally, the Shiv Sena gained ground while the Congress was reduced to half
As counting for control of Asia's richest civic body - BMC - got underway, initial trends showed Shiv Sena leading the charts. On the day of reckoning, out of the 227 seats up for grabs, the Sena barely managed to outshine its former ally BJP . However, even as the Sena has already began celebrations at its Dadar headquarters Sena Bhavan, no party had reached the magic number of 115 to get simple majority. The Thane Municipal elections also appeared to be leaning towards Sena.
As the counting commenced this morning, the BJP started with a lead. However, minutes later, it was lagging behind the Sena. Later, a confident Sena marched past with leads twice those of the BJP. But for Congress, it was only half-an-hour into the counting that the party even opened its account with NCP following shortly afterwards. Meanwhile, despite setbacks, MNS appeared to be doing better than NCP.
