S Chokkalingam, Maharashtra’s Chief Electoral Officer, also asked them to submit a report by next week, after which a copy of this report will be given to opposition party leaders in the state.
File Photo: IANS
In the wake of the Congress-led MVA opposition alliance’s request to the state Election Commission to not hold local body elections with defective voters’ lists, the Chief Electoral Officer ordered district collectors on Saturday to investigate the discrepancies.
S Chokkalingam, Maharashtra’s Chief Electoral Officer, also asked them to submit a report by next week, after which a copy of this report will be given to opposition party leaders in the state.
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An inquiry will be conducted into how names of voters appeared in two places in the same constituency and action will be taken against officials found guilty, sources said.
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It may be recalled that recently, the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) opposition alliance had presented evidence to the Maharashtra State Election Commission that 200 voters were found listed with the same house address in Nagpur. The MVA opposition had urged the Commission not to hold local body elections with discrepancies in voters’ lists.
“Local civic body elections were not held for the last five years. So what difference does it make if the elections are postponed for another six months,” Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray had said, demanding that local civic body elections must be postponed as long as voters’ lists are not rectified.
However, it is learnt that the Maharashtra State Election Commission has no plans to postpone local civic body elections in Maharashtra and is preparing to hold local civic body elections in the state from the first week of December 2025 onwards.
The Maharashtra State Election Commission has started all preparations to hold the pending local body elections in the state as per the orders of the Supreme Court, and the elections will be announced in the first week of November. It is expected that the elections to 247 municipalities and 147 Nagar Panchayats will be held in the first week of December 2025.
The Maharashtra State Election Commission has made preparations to hold three-tier elections to municipal corporations, Nagar Panchayats (town councils), zilla parishads and panchayat samitis (village councils). It has already reviewed preparations along with the state government and district administrations.
In the first phase, elections will be held for 247 municipal corporations and 147 Nagar Panchayats during the first week of December 2025. Elections for 32 zilla parishads and 336 panchayats by the end of December 2025. In the final phase, elections for 29 municipal corporations will be held between January 15 and January 20, as ordered by the Supreme Court earlier.
It is also learnt that the schedule for municipal elections in Maharashtra will be announced by the end of October or in the first week of November 2025.
The sources said that it is likely that elections to zilla parishads and panchayat samitis will be held first, because heavy rains in September 2025 caused immense damage in Maharashtra’s rural areas, due to which farmers are unhappy. The ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance, the sources said, fears that holding zilla parishad elections immediately could adversely affect its prospects.
The Fadnavis-led Mahayuti ruling alliance does not want the zilla parishad elections to happen immediately, since the discontent of farmers is unaffordable for the ruling BJP, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, the sources added.
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