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Rutuja Latke, the candidate of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), established a comfortable lead after the first round of counting on Sunday for the byelection to Andheri (East) Assembly seat in Mumbai.
Latke polled 4,277 votes out of the 5,624 votes counted so far, an official said.
At the end of the first round of counting, 622 votes were cast in favour of the None of the Above (NOTA) option, which was more than the number of votes polled by each of the six other independent candidates in fray.
The counting of votes began at 8 am on Sunday at a civic-run school in Mumbai.
As many as 200 officials were involved in the counting process. The Mumbai Police have deputed 300 personnel to maintain law and order, according to an official statement.
Voting for the by-election, necessitated due to the death of sitting Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Latke in May this year, was held on November 3 and witnessed a low voter turnout of 31.74 per cent.
Rutuja Latke, the wife of Ramesh Latke, is expected to win comfortably after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) withdrew its nominee from the byelection.
This is the first electoral contest in Maharashtra after the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government collapsed in June following a revolt by a section of Shiv Sena MLAs led by Eknath Shinde.
Shinde subsequently became chief minister in an alliance with the BJP.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress, both constituents of the MVA, have supported Rutuja Latke’s candidature.
