Mumbai : The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections, last held in 2017, will be conducted on January 15 next year, with the result to be announced the following day. Some of the prominent civic bodies going to polls also include Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. The voting will be held from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm. Maharashtra State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare said as per the provisions of the relevant laws, the SEC fixed July 1, 2025, as the notified date, and the Assembly constituency lists existing on that date have been divided ward-wise for the elections.
Between December 23 and 30, filing of nominations for candidates will be held. The verification of nominations will be done on December 31. Candidates have time till January 2, 2026, to withdraw their nomination, if they wish to do so. On January 3, the symbol allocation and final list of candidates contesting the polls will be released. A caste validity certificate will be mandatory during the nomination process. With the announcement of the elections, the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) comes into effect. The ward-wise final electoral rolls have been published today. The list of polling station locations (buildings) will be published on December 20; and the polling station-wise electoral rolls will be out on December 27.
Waghmare said 29 civic bodies, including the BMC, have 2,869 seats on offer and 3.48 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. Sufficient Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) have been arranged for these elections. This includes the availability of 43,958 control units and 87,916 ballot units. For the approximately 10,111 polling stations of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, 11,349 control units and 22,698 ballot units have been arranged. Of the 29 municipal corporations in the state, Jalna and Ichalkaranji are two newly formed municipal corporations.
The term of five municipal corporations expired in 2020. The term of the highest number of municipal corporations, 18, expired in 2022; while the term of four municipal corporations expired in 2023. In the 2017 BMC polls, no party secured an outright majority in the 227-member civic body. The then-undivided Shiv Sena emerged as the single largest party with 84 seats, closely followed by the BJP, which won 82 seats. The BJP later supported Shiv Sena for the mayor’s post.
Other parties like the Congress (31 seats), Nationalist Congress Party (undivided) (9) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (7) also won seats, but the Shiv Sena maintained its lead and continued to be a dominant force in the country’s richest civic body. The tenure of elected BMC corporators ended in March 2022, after which the Municipal Commissioner was appointed administrator to oversee the city’s affairs until fresh elections are held.
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