Maharashtra civic polls in January: 29 bodies, 2,869 seats at stake

The long-awaited polls to 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra, including cash-rich Mumbai, where elections are due since early 2022, will be held on January 15 and votes will be counted on January 16, the State Election Commission (SEC) said on Monday.  As many as 2,869 seats in these municipal corporations, including 227 in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) -- Asia's largest civic body with more than ₹74,000 crore budget in 2025-26 -- will be up for grabs, said the SEC.  Announcing the schedule for municipal corporation polls at a press conference here, State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare said more than 3.48 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in these civic bodies covering major urban centres of the state. With the announcement of the schedule, the model code of conduct has come into force in these municipal corporations.  Filing of nomination papers will begin on December 23 and the process will go on till December 30. Scrutiny of papers will be done on December 31 and January 2 will be the last date of withdrawal of nominations by candidates, Waghmare said. Symbol allocation and final list of candidates will be published on January 3. Polling in the 29 municipal corporations spread across Maharashtra will take place on January 15 and votes will be counted the next day, said the senior IAS officer.  The voting will take place from 7.30 am to 5.30 pm. Those standing in queues at 5.30 pm will be handed a slip and they will be allowed to vote beyond the deadline, he said.  Besides the BMC, the civic bodies going to polls include corporations of Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Vasai-Virar, Kalyan-Dombivali, Kolhapur, Ulhasnagar, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Solapur, Amravati, Akola, Latur, Parbhani, Chandrapur, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Malegaon, Panvel, Mira-Bhayander, Nanded-Waghala, Sangli-Miraj- Kupwad, Jalgaon, Dhule, Ahilyanagar, Ichalkaranji and Jalna.  In September, the Supreme Court asked the SEC to conduct local body elections, including of the municipal corporations, by January 31. Out of the 29 corporations, Ichalkaranji and Jalna civic bodies are newly created bodies. Of the remaining 27, term of five civic bodies ended in 2020 and that 18 corporations, including Mumbai, in 2022.  The term of three civic bodies expired in 2023. Except Mumbai, the remaining civic bodies have multi-member wards where electors has to vote for three to five members in a ward. Mumbai has single member wards.  Waghmare informed that there were about 15 lakh suspected duplicate voters in these urban centres, of which 11.5 lakh are in Mumbai alone. However, after field inspections and contacting possible duplicate voters through a software tool, the actual number is 7 per cent of the figure. These names are marked with double star and they have been asked which polling booth they will be voting, said the state poll panel chief. Duplicate electors who couldn't be contacted will be asked to file an affidavit when they come to a particular polling booth, affirming they haven't voted elsewhere, said the senior bureaucrat.  Waghmare stated that nominations can be filed only offline and the voter lists existing as on July 1, 2025, -- which has been updated ward-wise -- will be used for elections. Since the electoral lists are from the Election Commission of India (ECI), the SEC has no right to delete or add names, he clarified.  He said elections to 12 Zilla Parishads, where the reservation limit is up to to 50 per cent, will be announced soon, taking into consideration the apex court directives about quota. The SC had asked the SEC to conduct elections to 29 municipal corporations, 246 municipal councils, 42 town councils, 32 Zilla Parishads, and 336 Panchayat Samitis across Maharashtra by January 31.  Acting on the SC directive, the SEC conducted elections to 263 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in the first phase on December 2. The remaining 24 councils and nagar panchayats (one of them saw unopposed election of members) will vote on December 20. Counting of all votes polled (on December 2 and 20) will be taken up on December 21.  Poll schedule for Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis whose termed have expired is still to be announced.