Poll Verdict: Shiv Sena tops Mumbai, close second BJP shines statewide; Congress-NCP bite dust

Though Sena is three seats ahead in Mumbai, the BJP emerged as a winner across the state.

The Congress and the NCP bagged 39 and 7 seats respectively, in the 227-member BMC, latest reports said.

Seen as a mini Assembly polls, the results are a big relief for Maharashtra Chief Minister  Devendra Fadnavis who led the campaign and had said that he would take responsibility for any defeat and give credit for victory to the entire BJP team.

Shiv Sena as per the latest reports captured  84 seats of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), ahead of the main rival BJP which is only three seats behind.

The halfway mark of 114 is required to rule the civic body.

The BJP is also doing well in other municipalities in the state.

It has wrested Pune from Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party and is ahead in Solapur, Amravati, Nashik and Nagpur as counting for nine other Maharashtra civic bodies are also underway.

According to media reports, the Sena, which ruled the BMC, country's riches civic body for 20 years, has said it will not take the support of the BJP, its estranged partner.

The average voting in the Maharashtra municipal polls held on Tuesday was 56.40 per cent, against 48.59 per cent for the same in 2012.

Taking moral responsibility for Congress' poor performance in the  BMC polls, the party's Mumbai unit chief Sanjay Nirupam on Thursday offered to resign from his post.

In 2012 the Congress had won 52 wards of the corporation.

Media reports said while talking to reporters, Nirupam criticised the  party leaders in the city who, he said, wished that the Congress lose the elections.

"In their aim to defeat me, they caused immense harm to the party," he said.