BJP, Shinde Sena lead in early trends of Maharashtra Zilla Parishad polls

Mumbai (PTI): The BJP and its Mahayuti ally Shiv Sena were ahead of their rivals in the early trends of the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti polls in Maharashtra as counting of votes began on Monday morning.

The Bharatiya Janata Party established an early lead in 26 seats of Zilla Parishads and Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena in 13, as per TV channels, with no official confirmation yet from the State Election Commission.

The NCP was leading in 13, Congress in 10 and Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) was ahead in 6 seats.

The counting began at 10 am for elections to 12 Zilla Parishads and 125 Panchayat Samitis.

The polls were held on Saturday in 12 Zilla Parishads - Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Solapur, Kolhapur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Parbhani, Dharashiv and Latur - to elect 731 members along with 1,462 seats in 125 Panchayat Samitis under their jurisdiction.

A total of 2,624 candidates contested the Zilla Parishad polls, and 4,814 candidates were in the fray for the Panchayat Samiti elections.

The results are expected to shape the future course for the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) factions of late Ajit Pawar and party founder Sharad Pawar.

The two factions had set aside their bitter two-year rivalry to contest these local body polls in an informal alliance in Pune, Satara, Solapur and Sangli, where candidates from both sides contested under the original 'clock' symbol.