Thaindian News

Mumbai, Jan 3 (IANS) Barely an hour after poll schedules to 10 municipal corporations and 27 zilla parishads were announced here Tuesday, opposition parties in Maharashtra demanded simultaneous counting of votes in the elections.

State Election Commissioner Neela Satyanarayan declared that zilla parishad polls will be held Feb 7, while elections to civic bodies will be held Feb 16.

Votes will be counted Feb 8 and Feb 16-17, respectively.

But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) demanded that the counting of votes be held simultaneously Feb 17.

“Since there is a gap of just nine days between the zilla parishad and civic elections, we want the counting of both elections to be held simultaneously,” BJP’s Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra legislative council Vinod Tawde said.

Shiv Sena spokesperson Neelam Gorhe said same-day counting will prevent voters in the municipal corporations from getting “influenced” by the zilla parishad results.

“More so since in some districts like Nagpur, Thane, Nashik, Solapur and others, both zilla parishad and civic bodies polls shall be held,” Gorhe said.

MNS vice-president V. Saraswat also said that since the model code of conduct has already been imposed from Tuesday, it would make sense to postpone the counting of votes in zilla parishads till the civic bodies’ elections are completed.

Besides the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, Thane, Nagpur, Pune, Nashik, Ulhasnagar, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Solapur, Akola, and Amravati municipal corporations will go to the polls Feb 16.