Municipal polls: Low voter turnout in Mumbai

Voting for the civic elections in Mumbai and nine other municipalities of Maharashtra ended on Thursday evening with Mumbai recording poor voter turnout.

The financial hub of the country recorded only 29.51 per cent voter turnout till 3.30 pm.

The polling was less than10 percent in the first three hours in Mumbai.

Congress MP Priya Dutt rued the low turnout. She said by not voting the people are harming the system and should not be blaming later for the ills.

Polling was peaceful in Cewntral Mumbai ´s Nagpada and Agripada area where the election commission had declared some booths as sensitive.

However, the area also registered low voter turn out till 11 am in the morning.

Borivali (W) also recorded low voter turn out in the morning.

All eyes were on the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation where a heavy contest is witnessed between the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP combine and their tough challenger Congress-NCP..

Raj Thackeray led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) is also in the fray and is seen as a dark horse.

The Sena-BJP combine is dominating the Mumbai municipality for the past 16 years.

Besides Mumbai, the polling took place in Thane, Ulhasnagar, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Solapur, Nashik, Akola, Amravati and Nagpur.

A total of 1,244 candidates were in the fray in the ten municipalities.