BMC polls: Mumbai records 55 percent voter turnout, highest in last five elections

MUMBAI: Mumbai on Tuesday recorded 55 percent voting in the elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), marking the highest in the last five times.   Polling for 227 seats of Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai concluded at 5:30 pm where a total of 17,331 candidates were in the fray for 3,210 seats in 10 municipal corporations. The civic body polls witnessed voters from political, Bollywood and sports fraternity. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena Party chief Uddhav Thackeray were among the many who cast their votes. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray also cast his vote earlier in the day. The Bollywood stars including Anushka Sharma, John Abraham, Ranveer Singh, Shraddha Kapoor, Varun Dhawan , veteran actress Rekha and director Subhash Ghai also stepped out to cast their vote. Former Indian cricketer and Rajya Sabha MP Sachin Tendulkar also cast his vote, along with his wife Anjali. The local body polls will be witnessing a high pitch battle between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Shiv Sena, the Congress, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).