Voting is underway for elections to 29 municipal corporations across Maharashtra, with the spotlight firmly on Mumbai, where a fierce contest is underway for control of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India’s largest and wealthiest civic body.
Polling started at 7.30 am amid tight security and will continue until 5.30 pm. Around 3.48 crore voters are eligible to cast their ballots to decide the fate of 15,931 candidates contesting 2,869 seats across 893 wards.
The BMC elections, being held after a nine-year gap due to a four-year delay, have drawn particular attention.
As many as 1,700 candidates are in the fray for 227 seats in the civic body, which has an annual budget exceeding Rs 74,400 crore. More than 25,000 police personnel have been deployed across Mumbai to ensure smooth conduct of polling.
These are the first BMC elections since the 2022 split in the Shiv Sena, when Eknath Shinde broke away with a majority of MLAs and allied with the BJP to form the government. The undivided Shiv Sena had ruled the BMC uninterrupted for 25 years, from 1997 to 2022.
The political stakes have been further raised by the reunion of estranged cousins Uddhav Thackeray of Shiv Sena (UBT) and Raj Thackeray of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) last month, ending a two-decade rift in a bid to consolidate Marathi votes. Meanwhile, rival factions of the NCP have forged local alliances in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
The Congress, seeking to revive its urban footprint, has chosen to contest independently in Mumbai by aligning with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi and the Rashtriya Samaj Paksh, stepping out of the shadow of its Maha Vikas Aghadi partners.
Counting of votes will be held on January 16.