Maharashtra BMC elections 2026: Voters allege no 'beep' sound in EVMs, poor quality ink; chaos ensues

Voting for the Maharashtra BMC elections 2026 began in full earnest on Thursday morning, but chaos ensued in various parts of the state after a number of issues were reported.

Held after a three-year gap, the elections will decide the fate of 15,931 candidates contesting for 2,969 seats across 29 municipal corporations in the state, including Mumbai.

While Mumbaikars have only a single vote, as they have a single-member ward, other municipalities will see voters casting four votes.

All eyes are on whether the ruling Mahayuti alliance will be able to take on the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and Raj Thackeray's MNS. 

One of the major issues reported at the elections was a problem with a few Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)—reported at Nagpur's Futala area.

As a result, neither the 'beep' sound was heard, nor did a light turn on when the voters selected their candidates.

While a Loksatta report said that this issue was resolved soon, a number of other issues continue to persist.

The report added that Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani has admitted that the ink used to mark completed voters was of a poor quality, and could be erased easily.

This comes after a number of reports showed how easy it was to remove the ink—either by rubbing or using nail polish remover. Some even alleged that marker pens were used.

During the elections, it was also observed that the order of voting machines at polling station 35 (Dashrath Patil Library) of ward 35 was changed, causing confusion.

According to the BMC election rules, the voting machines are to be placed in the order A→B→C→D, here it has come to light that the machines were placed in the reverse order of D→C→B→A.