NCP sweeps civic polls

Tension prevailed at the vote counting booths where counting for Panel 46, 61, 62 and 63 was held on Friday. The results came out in favour of NCP, which, with winning over 51 seats in PMC polls, is now all set to rule Pune at large.

Cityplus shares with you a review of the first account information of counting, one of the most awaited time for the candidates and the voters, who voted for their best representative. This time, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has had a major win in the civic polls, by holding over 51 and 29 seats respectively, followed by Congress-28, Bharatiya Janata Party-26, Shiv Sena-15 , Republican Party of India-2 and Independent-1.

Panel 46 A and B
Kavita Shivarkar, a first timer for the elections, came out winning with over 6350 votes from Panel 46 B. Belonging to a politically strong background, she fought against Saroj Jambhulkar (NCP- 4929 votes) and won by a huge margin of more than 2,000 votes. Another Congress candidate, Satish Londhe, former corporator, also emerged as a winner from Panel 46 A, by 5794 votes, leaving behind Ramdas Kasbe of NCP (4810 votes) and Ganesh Wanavdikar of MNS (2282 votes).  

Panel 61 A and B
Competition was tough between Prashant Jagtap (NCP candidate) and Tanaji Lonkar (Shiv Sena–BJP–RPI alliance candidate), where Prashant Jagtap came won with 6726 votes laving Tanaji Lonkar behind by 491 votes. While for Panel 61 B, where both first timers Nanda Lonkar of NCP and Neha Kedari of Congress were struggling to take a seat, Nanda Lonkar emerged as a clear winner with 6968 votes. Neha Kedari received 6882 votes.

Panel 63 A and B
One of the major disappointments to Shiv Sena after Tanaji Lonkar’s loss in the elections was in Panel 63, where former Corporator Megha Babar lost the seat to Aarti Sainath Babar, a first timer contesting from Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). She emerged as a winner in Panel 63 B of Mitha Nagar and Kondhwa Budruk with a surprising number of votes of over 7530. Bharat Chowdhury, also from Shiv Sena, contesting from the same Panel along with Megha Babar, emerged as a winner from the Panel 63 A leaving behind Raees Sundke of MNS and Mohammed Hussain Khan of NCP and Amir Patel, an independent candidate.

How candidates fared!
Panel 46 - Wanowrie - Ramtekdi
46 A - Satish Londhe - Indian National Congress - 5794 votes
46 B - Kavita Shivarkar - Indian National Congress - 6350 votes
Panel 61 - Shinde Chhatri - Wanowrie
61 A - Nanda Lonkar - Nationalist Congress Party - 6968 votes
61 B -  Prashant Jagtap - Nationalist Congress Party - 6726 votes
Panel 62 - Kondhwa Budruk
62 A - Sangeeta Thosar - Shiv Sena Candidate - 5507 votes
62 B - Yogesh Tilekar - Bharatiya Janata Party - 5341 votes
Panel 63 - Mitha Nagar - Kondhwa Khurd
63 A - Bharat Chowdhary - Shiv Sena - 8262 votes
63 B - Aarti Babar - Maharashtra Navnirman Sena - 7530 votes

Polling booths in societies
To avoid inconvenience, Pune Municipal Corporation had set up 238 polling booths in various housing societies in the city for the February 16 civic elections.
“Housing societies having enough spaces for setting up polling booths were selected for the purpose. The whole idea was to ensure that a maximum number of people could use the facility. Many societies had more than one booth,” said Vilas Kanade, deputy commissioner and official looking after the polling booths. There were polling booths in club houses and over 30 polling booths in community halls.
As per the directives of State Election Commission to Municipal Corporations, polling booths were set up in housing societies that had more than 800 – 1,000 voters. It is the responsibility of the municipal commissioners to provide security and other basic infrastructure for the booths. Applications for setting up polling booths were received from housing societies in Kondhwa, Wanowrie, Kothrud, Karve Nagar, Pune-Satara Road, Ahmednagar Road and Deccan Gymkhana areas.
Nearly 26 lakh people were expected to cast their votes in the municipal elections. Nearly 3,200 polling booths were set up and 21,000 staff was involved in the polling process.
“The intention was to encourage more and more people to vote. These initiatives are expected to increase the voter turnout,” he added.

Low turnout at voting
An estimated 51 per cent voters Thursday exercised their franchise in the polls to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), official sources said. Barring a few minor incidents of unruly behaviour by party activists, the polling passed off peacefully, they said.
As many as 1,180 candidates were in the fray for the 152 seats of PMC, which has with a total electorate of about 25.58 lakh. Among the early voters were city Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi, currently under suspension from the party following the CWG scam, and outgoing Mayor Mohansingh Rajpal of NCP.
A salient feature of the polls was absence of a pre-poll alliance between Congress and NCP - both coalition partners at the State and Central levels. Shiv Sena-BJP combine, joined by RPI faction led by Ramdas Athavale, forged an alliance to take on Congress and Sharad Pawar-led NCP. Raj Thackeray-led MNS, too, had fielded its candidates, hoping to increase its marginal presence in the outgoing House, ruled by NCP.

First time voters
Kalyani Bagade, a design student at a city college shared, “I voted for the first time and it was a completely different experience for me. So far, I had seen elderly voting and this experience turned out to be very interesting.”
Her sister, Apoorva Bagade, an engineering student said, “We should take up the responsibility of voting the best people representative. We should not just cry over no development when we try doing away with casting vote. It is disappointing that people only cry over such issues of no development, when they do not take the trouble of voting. We should clean our mess first and then blame others. And if we get the opportunity to do that through voting, then why not exercise the Right given to us.”
Another student Natasha Mahapatra said, “We have voted the candidate who has worked in our area and his work in the ward is visible. We, as Youth and the future of India, should take up voting seriously to have better administrators. I personally find it easy to pin point now because I have voted for him and can demand change in my ward.”

--Renuka Suryavanshi