BMC Election Results 2017: Devendra Fadnavis, BJP's 46-Year-Old Sena Slayer

Mumbai: Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, spent much of Thursday at his home "Varsha" in Mumbai's Malabar Hill, getting minute by minute reports from the 23 counting centres for the  Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation or BMC elections. By evening, when it was clear that his party, the BJP, would end no more than two seats behind the Shiv Sena, Mr Fadnavis arrived at the party's office and thanked the people of Maharashtra for the "unprecedented victory" which he credited to "our transparent politics and the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The BJP has won 82 of the council's 227 seats and eight out of the ten major municipalities where elections were held this week, making it the day's biggest gainer. Devendra Fadnavis has delivered again. Shiv Sena at 84 is marginally ahead but none of the parties could get near the majority mark of 114.

"It's a tight slap for those who said that the BJP will not get 40 seats in the BMC polls," said the BJP's Vinod Tawde, a minister in Mr Fadnavis' government. The party's best so far was the 31 seats it had won as the Shiv Sena's partner last time. The Congress was number 2 that year, winning 52 seats. In this election it has been relegated to a faraway third.

The BJP's campaign for the crucial civic polls, billed as a mini-assembly election, was built completely around Mr Fadnavis, also featured in comic strips as a superhero. The Chief Minister led from the front saying that he would bear complete responsibility if the BJP fared badly in these elections but would credit the party for success.

The 46-year-old took on an angry Shiv Sena, which broke ties with the BJP just ahead of the civic elections, matching its chief Uddhav Thackeray's multiple attacks, bitter and often personal.

Another test lies ahead if Mr Thackeray acts on his threat of pulling out of the Maharashtra and Central governments that the BJP leads. Mr Fadnavis heads a team of 122 BJP legislators in the Maharashtra assembly, 22 short of a majority. The Shiv Sena's 63 help him cross the halfway mark at 144.

Speculation that Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party, with 41 legislators, is the BJP's plan B peaked when the veteran Maharashtra politician was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the country's second highest civilian honour.

But right now it's time to celebrate for the BJP. New corporators who have won are arriving at the party's Mumbai office in Dadar East and are posing in front of posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The crowds have swelled since word got around that Mr Fadnavis will be here soon to address party workers.

There has been cheer at the party office since it became clear this morning that the BJP was set to do far better than ever before in the BMC elections, but once the gap with the Shiv Sena narrowed, the party office erupted in celebrations with confetti being strewn and sweets distributed.

Mr Fadnavis has been credited also with the BJP's big gains in the first part of civic elections in the state held a few months ago, mostly at the cost of the Congress and NCP in their rural Maharashtra strongholds.

In its campaign for the BMC, Asia's richest civic body with a budget of over 37,000 crores, the BJP targeted the Shiv Sena over the poor state of Mumbai's roads and other amenities as also over allegations of corruption, promising "transparency" and "transformation" if it was given control of the municipality.