Maharashtra: BMC, 28 other Civic bodies polls to be held on Jan 15

In Maharashtra, elections for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and 28 other municipal corporations will be held on January 15 next year, with the result to be announced the following day. Announcing the much-awaited schedule for the municipal corporation polls at a press conference in Mumbai, State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare said nomination process will begin on December 23 and go on till December 30.Candidates have time till January 2, 2026, to withdraw their nomination. According to SEC Waghmare, a caste validity certificate will be mandatory during the nomination process. With the announcement of the elections, the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) comes into effect.

He said these 29 civic bodies, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), have 2,869 seats on offer and 3.48 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in these major urban centres of the state. The prominent civic bodies going to polls include Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. The BMC elections last held in 2017.The voting will be held from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm.

Of the 29 municipal corporations in the state, Jalna and Ichalkaranji are two newly formed municipal corporations. The term of five municipal corporations expired in 2020. The term of the highest number of municipal corporations, 18, expired in 2022; while the term of four municipal corporations expired in 2023.

The civic polls are seen as high-stakes, especially for the Sena (UBT), as it will be the first BMC election after the 2022 split in the Shiv Sena and a direct contest with the Eknath Shinde-led faction, which is part of the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra.n the 2017 BMC polls, no party secured an outright majority in the 227-member civic body. The then-undivided Shiv Sena emerged as the single largest party with 84 seats, closely followed by the BJP, which won 82 seats. The BJP later supported Shiv Sena for the mayor's post. Other parties like the Congress (31 seats), Nationalist Congress Party (undivided) (9) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (7) also won seats, but the Shiv Sena maintained its lead and continued to be a dominant force in the country's richest civic body.