BMC Polls Set For January 15, Results On January 16 In High-Stakes Mumbai Battle
The elections come after repeated delays and legal hurdles, making the announcement particularly significant for political parties that have been preparing for a prolonged civic battle.
Elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and 28 other municipal corporations in Maharashtra will be held on January 15, the State Election Commission (SEC) announced on Friday, with counting scheduled for January 16. The announcement ends prolonged uncertainty around civic polls in the state’s major urban centres and sets the stage for a high-stakes political contest, particularly in Mumbai. The elections will determine control over key civic bodies that wield significant administrative and financial power, including the country’s richest municipal corporation.
State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare announced the poll schedule at a press conference, stating that a total of 2,869 seats across 29 municipal corporations will be contested. According to the SEC, around 3.48 crore voters are eligible to cast their ballots in these civic elections.
Key Cities & Poll Schedule
The nomination process will begin on December 23 and conclude on December 30. Candidates will be allowed to withdraw their nominations by January 2, 2026, while election symbols will be allotted by January 3, 2026.
Prominent civic bodies going to the polls include Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. Among these, the BMC remains the most closely watched, given its vast annual budget and influence over infrastructure, health and urban governance in Mumbai.
The elections come after repeated delays and legal hurdles, making the announcement particularly significant for political parties that have been preparing for a prolonged civic battle.
‘Vote Chori’ Row Casts Shadow
The poll announcement comes amid an escalating political controversy in Mumbai over alleged “vote chori” or vote theft. Opposition parties have accused authorities of inflating electoral rolls with fictitious and duplicate voters ahead of the civic polls.
In response, the BMC has initiated a clean-up of the voters’ list. Simultaneously, the Shiv Sena (UBT) has launched a parallel, ground-level verification drive across all 227 civic wards. Party leaders claim that their workers have identified thousands of bogus or duplicate entries, warning that such discrepancies could significantly impact the election outcome.
The Sena (UBT) has also alleged that several long-time residents, particularly Marathi voters, were wrongly marked as “duplicate”, potentially depriving them of their voting rights.
The civic polls are widely seen as a political litmus test, especially for the Sena (UBT), marking the first BMC election since the 2022 split in the Shiv Sena and a direct contest with the Eknath Shinde-led faction, now part of the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra.
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