Mumbai: Counting of votes for 10 civic bodies in Maharashtrabegan today (Feb 2, 2007) morning with the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) taking an early lead in Mumbai and Nagpur.

Initial trends indicated that the saffron alliance was setto retain control of the 227-member Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC),the richest civic body in India.It was ahead in 56 seats, the Congress in 30, Nationalist Congress Party in 10and the breakaway Maharashtra Nav Nirman Sena floated by Raj Thackeray in five.

In declared results, the Congress had won five seats and theShiv Sena three.

In Nagpur,the Sena-BJP combine had won four seats and was ahead in 14. The Congress wasleading in eight and the NCP in two of the 135-member corporation.

In Pune, the Congress and the Shiv Sena were locked in aclose contest for power the with Sena-BJP alliance winning 10 seats, the NCPbagging eight and the Congress four.

In suburban Thane, the NCP won seven seats and the BJP andCongress two seats each.

Nearly 46 percent of the 8.4 million voters in Mumbaiexercised their franchise Thursday for India's richest civic body, whilethe average was 58 percent in the rest of the state, said an official of theState Election Commission.

The other corporations that went to polls Thursday werePune, Thane, Ulhasnagar, Pimpri-Chinchwad,Nashik, Solapur, Akola Amaravati and Nagpur.