The Maharashtra State Election Commission announced here on Tuesday that elections to 246 municipal councils and 42 nagar panchayats will be held on December 2 but failed to announce when elections to 29 municipal corporations, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), or 32 zilla parishads as well as 336 panchayat samitis will be held.
State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare also announced that local civic body elections will be held using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and counting of votes will take place on December 3, 2025.
Significantly, Tuesday’s announcement has been made despite the demand of all Opposition parties in Maharashtra that voters’ lists must be rectified before local civic body elections are held. Besides, the Opposition has also demanded that local civic elections must be held using ballot papers. But the EC’s announcement about using EVMs goes against the demand.
Waghmare said that the nomination process would begin on November 10 and scrutiny of nominations will be conducted on November 18, while the final date for withdrawal will be November 21.
He said the polls would be held as per electoral rolls updated till October 31, 2025. A booth-wise voter list will be published on November 7. Candidates will be allowed to file nominations online and each candidate will be able to contest in up to four wards. Candidates will have to submit caste validity certificates and its receipt will be mandatory, Waghmare announced.
The local civic body elections will decide the fates of 6,859 members and 288 municipal council presidents. There will be 13,355 polling stations and a total of 1.07 crore eligible voters. More than 66,000 staff members will be deployed to conduct elections, Waghmare said.
The announcement of the Maharashtra local civic body election schedule follows the Supreme Court’s directions to hold local body polls in the state before January 31, 2025.
The announcement is considered as a significant step towards restoring elected representation in urban and semi-urban regions of Maharashtra, which went unrepresented during the last five years.