Mumbai, Dec. 22 -- The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti on Sunday swept the elections to 288 municipal councils and nagar panchayats by winning 207 posts of presidents of local bodies while the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi was restricted to a collective tally of 44, according to the results announced by the state election commission. According to the SEC, the BJP won 117 posts of municipal presidents, Shiv Sena won 53, and the NCP won 37 posts. The Congress bagged 28, the NCP (SP) seven, and Shiv Sena (UBT) nine. The BJP bagged more than 48% of the overall tally of 6,859 seats as well, its score of 3,325 seats was a big jump from the 1,602 it had bagged in the 2017 local body polls. Union home minister Amit Shah thanked the people of Maharashtra for the resounding victory. "Thanks to the people of the state for giving overwhelming support to the Mahayuti in the Maharashtra Nagar Panchayat and Nagar Parishad elections. This victory is the people's blessings on the vision of the welfare of every section under the central and state governments of the NDA led by Modi ji," Shah said in post on X in Hindi. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis described it as a "record-breaking" victory. "The BJP has won 3,325 or 48% seats in the 288 bodies. It is double of the 1,602 seats we won in the 2017 elections. In terms of municipal council and nagar panchayat presidents' posts, we won a whopping 129 (including the smaller allies and independents supporting BJP) out of 288 posts while our alliance partners too won handsomely, taking Mahayuti's success to newer heights," Fadnavis said. "We could achieve this success without criticising anybody and talking only about development and projecting the blueprint of development for various cities," he said. The grand success of the ruling alliance in the first phase of local body polls will give them a head start for the remaining two phases, including elections to 29 municipal corporations such as Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Nagpur and Navi Mumbai on January 15, according to political commentators. Polls to local bodies are considered mini assembly polls as more than 80% of the electorate in rural and urban areas vote in these elections. The elections were marred by allegations of anomalies in voters lists and misuse of power and money by the ruling Mahayuti alliance. Responding to the results, Maharashtra Congress president Harshavardhan Sakpal said, "It was not a free and fair election. The results are not commensurate with the sentiments among people."...