Pune: Emerged as the single largest party, BJP not only performed better in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) election in terms of number of corporators but also gained a larger voter share compared to the 2017 poll. While BJP secured a vote share of 36.88% in the poll conducted nearly nine years ago, that figure rose to 43.12% in 2026, as per data from the corporation’s election office. The number of corporators increased to 119, from 97 in 2017.
Dheeraj Ghate, city unit chief of BJP, said, “The party used multiple ways to reach out to voters. Along with party workers, other supporters of our school of thought were involved in creating awareness of voting. We targeted areas where we had maximum support. A system was in place to bring voters to booths.” The two factions of NCP, which contested the poll together, ranked second in vote share for the second consecutive time. The undivided NCP in 2017 received 22.39% of the votes polled, which jumped to 27.79% (including 3.86% by NCP-SP) this time. However, the number of seats won by the two camps went down from 39 to 30.Congress bagged 15 seats compared to nine it won in 2017 though its vote share grew marginally from 8.42% to 8.48%.According to political observers, splits of parties and a reduction in the vote shares of parties like MNS and VBA helped BJP gain more votes.“BJP’s campaign had a deep psychological impact on voters. It tried not only the convenience-conscious minds, but also the unconscious and subconscious minds of the voters. Many voters, especially Gen Z, were impacted by it, and helped BJP win in large numbers. Other parties fell short in it,” said Prakash Pawar, a political analyst.He said this year’s election was different from previous polls. “This time, the competition was only between BJP and NCP, unlike the last election where four major parties fought with each other,” Pawar said.As per data, around 74.63 lakh votes were cast in the Jan 15 poll, of which 32.18 lakh went to BJP candidates, including the defeated ones. The second largest party, NCP, got 17.86 lakh votes. Congress secured around 6.32 lakh votes, followed by Shiv Sena with 5.22 lakh votes, and Shiv Sena (UBT) with 3.11 lakh votes. As many as 2.88 lakh voters exercised their franchise in favour of Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP). NOTA got more votes (2.21 lakh) than MNS (1.55 lakh), VBA (79,892) and AAP (50,517).
