Mahayuti, Oppn MVA to face-off on Jan 15 in 'Maha' battle for Mumbai, 28 other civic bodies

Mumbai, Dec 15 (PTI) High-stakes polls to 29 municipal corporations, including the cash-rich Mumbai, on January 15 will see the ruling Mahayuti and Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) battling it out for electoral supremacy in Maharashtra's major urban centres.

The poll schedule announcement was made by Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday in compliance of an order from the Supreme Court fixing January 31 next year as the deadline for holding the long-pending local body elections in the state.

The court in September this year had also censured the SEC for its "failure to take prompt action" and adhere to earlier timelines.

The January 15 elections, involving 2,869 seats and over 3.48 crore voters, set the stage for a crucial political showdown between the Mahayuti comprising BJP, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar-led NCP and the MVA coalition of Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress and Sharad Pawar-headed NCP (SP).

These are first municipal corporations post-splits in the Shiv Sena (2022) and the Nationalist Congress Party (2023), developments which reshaped Maharashtra's politics.

Votes will be counted on January 16. While one corporator will be elected from each seat in Mumbai (227 wards), three to five corporators will get chosen by voters per ward in 28 other civic bodies.

After the assembly polls, old alliances too are taking new shape, suiting local politics. The phase one of local body polls saw an intense contest among Mahayuti partners with the Shiv Sena and the BJP slugging it out in several municipal council polls earlier this month.

Before the assembly polls, rivals Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and the Shiv Sena (UBT) contested against each other. However, both have warmed up to each other after facing rout in the 2024 state polls.

While the Congress has ruled out any truck with the MNS, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said his party BJP and Shiv Sena will contest the civic polls together in most places.

He insisted efforts are underway to seal seat-sharing arrangements among Mahayuti allies, including NCP, in the maximum number of corporations. Fadnavis said there will be friendly contests between the BJP and Ajit Pawar-led NCP in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporations.

After the announcement of polls, NCP chief and Deputy CM Ajit Pawar appealed to people to exercise their franchise to ensure development and stability.

NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) spokesperson Mahesh Tapase said the party will contest elections with a strong focus on people-centric governance, transparency, and sustainable urban development.

Taking a swipe at the ruling Mahayuti coalition, Tapase remarked that the alliance is inherently unstable and will "sink under its own weight." Asia's largest civic body with more than Rs 74,000 crore budget in 2025-26, the BMC was ruled by the undivided Shiv Sena with the BJP as its junior ally for more than two decades till 2017.

This will also be a do-or-die battle for the Thackeray cousins -- Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and MNS president Raj. It will also be the test of 'Brand Thackeray' which took a massive beating in the assembly polls.

Ahead of the polls, Uddhav Thackeray mended ties with his once-estranged cousin Raj and both Shiv Sena (UBT) and the MNS are expected to join hands to put up a united fight.

The model code of conduct (MCC) has come into force in all poll-bound municipal corporation areas, State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare announced at a press conference.

The break up of 29 corporations is: Total wards: 893, total seats: 2,869, seats for women: 1,442, SCs 341, STs, 77 and OBC seats 759.

Waghmare said filing of nominations 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 is the last date of withdrawal of nominations.

Symbol allocation and final list of candidates will be published on January 3.

The notification for BMC elections will be issued on December 16 and those for the remaining 28 municipal corporations on December 18. Respective municipal commissioners will issue the notifications at their level.

Voting in all municipal corporations will be held from 7.30 am to 5.30 pm.

In view of the MCC, the government cannot take policy decisions related to municipal corporation areas. However, measures related to natural disasters or relief work will not be restricted, clarified Waghmare.

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.

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.

Although the SEC has provided an online system for filing nominations and affidavits, papers for municipal corporation elections will be accepted only in traditional offline mode.

Waghmare said 39,147 polling stations, including 10,111 in Mumbai, will be set up for the civic polls and adequate EVMs have been arranged.

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, the senior bureaucrat clarified.

However, special care has been taken to identify possible duplicate voters, he maintained.

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. PTI MR BNM VT PR NSK SKL RSY