Mumbai: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena alliance is leading in over 165 constituencies while the opposition Congress-Nationalist Congress Party nominees soaring ahead in around 75 seats, in the early trends of the October 21 elections vote count, at 10AM here on Thursday.
Among the prominent leaders are Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in Nagpur South-West, BJP's Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil in Shirdi, Nitesh Rane in Kankavali, Mohini Eknath Khadse in Muktainagar, Ashish Shelar in Bandra, Pankaja Munde in Parli.
Ally Shiv Sena's Aditya Thackeray in Worli, Sanjay Raymulkar in Buldana, Yamini Jadhav in Byculla, besides party candidates in at least 30 other seats were in the lead position.
From the opposition side, NCP's Ajit Pawar are leading in Baramati, Suman R Patil wife of RR Patil in Tasgaon-Kavthe Mahankal, Hasan Mushrif in Kagal, Jitendra Awhad in Mumbra.
The Congress' Leader of Opposition Vijay Wadettiwar was ahead in Brahmapuri, state President Balasaheb Thorat in Sangamner, Dheeraj Vilasrao Deshmukh in Latur Rural, and Nitin Raut in Nagpur North were leading.
The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena nominee Pramod alias Raju R Patil was leading in Kalyan Rural.
Besides the ruling BJP-Sena and Opposition Congress-NCP, other important parties in the fray include: Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, Prakash Ambedkar's Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, the Owaisis' All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party.
Tight security, with over 200,000 police personnel has been deployed as more than 25,000 election officials started the counting of votes simultaneously across the state.(UNI)