Maharashtra local polls: 35% turnout till 1.30 pm; parties accuse each other of malpractices

Mumbai: An estimated 35.05 per cent of voters exercised their franchise till 1.30 pm on Tuesday as voting for underway for elections in 264 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in Maharashtra, officials said.

Polling was peaceful barring some places at Mahad in Raigad, Akot in Akola and Muktainagar in Jalgaon district, where there was tension among workers of different parties accusing each other of violating rules.

Election officials have launched a probe after a video purportedly showed Shiv Sena MLA Santosh Bangar entering a polling booth while a woman was casting her vote during the local bodies election in Hingoli district.

The polling began at 7.30 am and will conclude at 5.30 pm.

Till 1.30 pm, 35.05 per cent of the electors cast their votes, an official in the State Election Commission (SEC) said.

Two suspected bogus voters were caught at a polling station in Buldhana barely an hour-and-a-half after voting began for the municipal council elections there, the Maharashtra Congress claimed.

A man allegedly attempted to cast a vote in the name of local resident Vaibhav Deshmukh at the Gandhi Primary School polling centre in ward no. 15 of Buldhana. The individual is said to be a resident of Kothali in Motala taluka, the Congress alleged in a statement.

Another person accompanying him was also detained, while Congress functionaries claimed that more individuals from Kothali and Ibrahimpur had been brought to Buldhana city with the intention of casting fraudulent votes.

The Opposition party alleged that Shiv Sena MLA Sanjay Gaikwad was bringing people from rural areas to cast "bogus" votes in the Buldhana Municipal Council elections.

There was no response yet from the authorities on the allegation.

Counting of votes will be taken up on December 21, as per the directive of the Bombay High Court's Nagpur bench on Tuesday, after the SEC last week rescheduled elections in 24 local bodies to December 20 due to certain apparent irregularities in the process.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis criticised the postponement of the 24 local body polls and said the SEC had interpreted the law in the wrong way.

Voting was underway across 264 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in the first phase of the local body elections in Maharashtra, where 6,042 seats and 264 posts of council presidents are up for grabs.

Nearly one crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the first round of the multi-tier rural and urban local bodies elections, which, as per the Supreme Court’s directives, are to be concluded by January 31, 2026.

The poll battle has become multi-dimensional with the BJP-led Mahayuti and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) locking horns, interspersed by "friendly fights" among the alliances and subtle bids for one-upmanship between the BJP and Shiv Sena.

The local body polls are being viewed as a major indicator of political sentiment in Maharashtra, a year after the BJP-led Mahayuti won 235 out of the 288 seats in the state assembly elections.

These polls have already witnessed significant political manoeuvring, with the ruling Mahayuti alliance of BJP, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, and Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party facing off against the Opposition MVA of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), Sharad Pawar's NCP (SP) and Congress.

The EC has introduced a verification system marking suspected duplicate voters with double stars on lists, requiring strict identity checks at polling stations. It also launched a mobile application providing information about candidates and voters, including affidavits of candidates.