Maharashtra Civic Body Polls 2026 Live Updates: The stage is set for Maharashtra civic polls to be held on 15 January, Thursday. The campaigning for the 29 municipal corporations going to polls across Maharashtra ended on Tuesday. These local body polls — being held in the state after a gap of four years since the last term — are being contested amid much acrimony across party lines.
Among the 29 corporations all eyes will be on Mumbai where voting is being held to elect a new Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) – country’s richest municipality with over ₹74,000 crore budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
When is BMC elections?
Polling for the 2,869 seats spread across 893 wards in Maharashtra’s municipal corporations will begin at 7.30 am and conclude at 5.30 pm on January 15. A total of 34.8 million eligible voters will decide the fate of 15,931 candidates across the state, including 1,700 in Mumbai and 1,166 in Pune. The votes will be counted on January 16.
Mumbai is witnessing a high-stakes three-cornered fight between the BJP-Shiv Sena, the Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS and the Congress-VBA alliances. The undivided Shiv Sena held majority in the BMC, the country’s richest civic body, for 26 uninterrupted years. The last BMC election was held in 2017. The then-united Shiv Sena and the BJP were the main contenders.
The control of BMC has been pivotal for the Thackeray family. The two estranged Thackeray cousins – Uddhav and Raj – have reunited for BMC polls after two decades. The BJP won 82 seats, while the Shiv Sena won 84 in the last elections in 2017.
Apart from Thackeray cousins’ reunion, the civic elections saw other political realignments. In western Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar got into an alliance with his uncle’s Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) for Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad and Parbhani, which have traditionally been the NCP’s stronghold.
The NCP has in recent days fought a spirited campaign against the BJP – the party’s partner in Mahayuti – the ruling alliance in Maharashtra state.
Outside of Mumbai, the other key municipal corporations going to polls include Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Kolhapur, Nagpur, 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.
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