Parties gear up for mini-assembly polls as SC orders Maharashtra local body elections

Mumbai: Leaders of prominent political parties, including Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, on Tuesday welcomed the Supreme Court direction to the State Election Commission to hold local body elections within four months, in what would be mini-assembly polls.

Fadnavis, a BJP leader, asserted the ruling Mahayuti bloc will contest the polls, which will include election to the all-important and cash rich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), jointly.

Except for a few places, the BJP-led Mahayuti, which also consists of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), will contest the elections as one unit, he maintained.

The BJP leader also said the Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation will apply in these elections.

"We are happy that the Supreme Court has asked us (SEC) to hold elections within four months. We welcome it wholeheartedly. We will request the State Election Commission to start preparations for conducting elections for the civic bodies," the CM noted.

Opposition parties like the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also hailed the SC ruling.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the SEC to notify local body polls in Maharashtra within four weeks and said the contentious issue of OBC reservation will be as it existed prior to the 2022 Banthia Commission report.

The SC accepted the panel report which recommended census to fix exact data on OBCs and reserve 27 per cent seats for the category in the local body polls. The bench asked the SEC to conclude these polls in four months.

The SC order comes after a prolonged delay in conducting elections for urban local bodies, including the BMC, which has been functioning without elected representatives for more than three years. In the case of 27 other municipal corporations, the delay ranges between three and eight years.

Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal noted the SC ruling has paved the way for holding the long-delayed local body polls.

"The state government should not find any escape route to delay them any further. Decentralisation of power is necessary, but the BJP wanted to centralise power and hence they wanted to delay the elections. Now, the SC has ensured that decentralisation of power takes place," Sapkal noted.

Kishori Pednekar, a Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and former Mumbai mayor, asserted her party was ready for the polls "We are ready for the polls. If the court has decided then the government must hold the polls," Pednekar said.

Another Sena (UBT) leader said considering that the next four months will coincide with monsoon, the polls can be held in the last week of September and first week of October.

Preeti Sharma Menon, Mumbai president of the AAP, said the ruling is a much-needed reinstatement of "derailed democracy".

Menon criticised the current state of governance in civic bodies, saying, "The BJP is presiding over organised loot in the BMC and other municipal corporations." Fixed deposits of the BMC, whose budget for FY 2025-26 stood at Rs 74,427 crore, have depleted substantially, the AAP leader claimed.

She alleged that in the absence of elected representatives, lower-level bureaucracy in civic bodies had become unaccountable.

"The lower bureaucracy has gone rogue, there is no priority for civic grievance redressal, and people have nowhere to go," Menon pointed out.

Calling the ongoing administration of civic bodies a "proxy rule" by the state government, Menon argued, "It is a crying shame that local bodies have been functioning without public representation.

Menon stressed the AAP is prepared to contest the elections.

In Maharashtra, the local body polls will be nothing less than mini-assembly polls.

In urban areas, there are 29 municipal corporations and all of them are without an elected body and are being run by government-appointed administrators. The state has 248 municipal councils and they all have administrators.

In rural Maharashtra, out of 34 Zilla Parishads, 32 have administrators. In case of panchayat samitis, out of 351 such bodies, 336 have administrators.

"We will move as per the Supreme Court order. Once we get the written copy of the order, we will start moving on to the next step," an SEC official opined.

NCP (SP) state president Jayant Patil said though these elections will be subject to the final SC order regarding OBC reservation, they are necessary for political parties.

"I thank the apex court for ordering these polls, which are important for the formation of a new leadership and keeping democracy alive. While the SC has allowed the SEC to extend the deadline for holding the elections if it deems necessary, we hope the state government will not delay them," Patil averred.

NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal argued the Banthia Commission report had reduced the OBC quota as it did not collect data in appropriate manner. "The SC decision has ensured that political reservation of OBCs remains the same," Bhujbal contended.

Among the urban civic bodies, the most prestigious battle will be for control of the BMC where the Shiv Sena (UBT) led by Uddhav Thackeray will be pitted against the BJP and Shiv Sena headed by deputy CM Eknath Shinde.

Former corporators maintained the SC direction does not guarantee a seamless polls at the earliest.

"The SC has given four weeks to the government to file an affidavit declaring how they are going to hold the elections. Whether the number of seats (in BMC) will be 227 or the government will raise them, the picture will be clear only after the government submits the affidavit," former Mumbai mayor Pednekar said.