Elections will be held on Thursday for 29 municipal corporations across Maharashtra, including cash-rich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
Voting for 2,869 seats across 893 wards will start at 7:30 am and conclude at 5:30 pm. A total of 3.48 crore voters are eligible to decide the fate of 15,931 candidates.
In Mumbai, 1,700 candidates are competing for 227 seats, with the BJP-led Mahayuti locked in a fierce contest against the united Thackeray cousins, Raj and Uddhav.
The elections will be a key test for the rival factions of the Shiv Sena and NCP, as well as for the ruling Mahayuti alliance and the Congress, as they vie for political influence in the state.
These are the first BMC elections since the 2022 split of Shiv Sena, when Eknath Shinde left with a majority of the party’s MLAs. The undivided Shiv Sena had dominated India’s wealthiest civic body for 25 years, from 1997 to 2022.
The reunion of estranged cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray after nearly two decades emerged as a key political development ahead of the elections. Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad corporations witnessed the rival factions of NCP forming pre-poll alliances.
In Mumbai, the Congress is contesting in alliance with Prakash Ambedkar's Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and the Rashtriya Samaj Paksh. However, in Nagpur, the party is going solo.
The cities and towns going to polls are: Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Mumbai, Solapur, Amravati, Akola, Nashik, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, Ulhasnagar, Thane, Chandrapur, Parbhani, Mira-Bhayandar, Nanded-Waghala, Panvel, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Latur, Malegaon, Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad, Jalgaon, Ahilyanagar, Dhule, Jalna and Ichalkaranji.
Tight security in Mumbai
In Mumbai, more than 25,000 police personnel have been deployed to oversee elections to the BMC and vote counting. Police personnel have installed barricades at various locations and conducted checks on passing vehicles.
A total of 10,231 polling stations have been set up across Mumbai and 64,375 officers and staff have been deployed for duty.
The BMC said several measures have been taken to encourage voter participation, including decoration of polling stations, setting up of pink booths, selfie points and media facilitation centres, along with special assistance for senior citizens and persons with disabilities.
In a first-of-its-kind initiative, the civic body has introduced a geo-fencing and live vehicle tracking system to monitor the movement of vehicles deployed for election duty.
