The Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday announced the schedule for elections to 29 municipal corporations across the state, including the high-stakes Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Polling will be held in a single phase on January 15, 2026, with counting of votes and results scheduled for January 16, State Election Commissioner, Dinesh Waghmare said.

The announcement was made at a press conference, addressed by SEC Secretary, Suresh Kakani. The Model Code of Conduct has come  into force with the announcement.

According to the SEC, nomination papers will be accepted from December 23 to December 30, followed by scrutiny on December 31. Candidates may withdraw their nominations by January 2, while the final list of candidates and allotment of election symbols will be published on January 3. Nomination forms will have to be submitted offline, as per SEC guidelines.

Elections will be held for 2,869 seats across the 29 municipal corporations, with 3.48 crore voters eligible to cast their ballots. Of the total seats, 1,442 are reserved for women, while 341 seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes, 77 for Scheduled Tribes, and 759 for Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

Major civic bodies going to polls include Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. All 29 corporations are currently governed by administrators, as their elected terms ended in 2022.

Focus on BMC
In Mumbai, polling will take place across 227 wards, with voting conducted at 10,111 polling stations. The term of BMC corporators ended in March 2022, following which the Municipal Commissioner was appointed as administrator. The elections are being held after the Supreme Court directed the SEC to complete all local body polls by January 31, 2026, as they had been pending for over three years.

The BMC, which oversees key civic services including infrastructure, healthcare, roads, water supply, education and sanitation in the metropolis, has an estimated budget of Rs. 74,427 crore for 2025–26. Expenditure stands at Rs. 43,162 crore  accounting for 58 % of development spending, making it Asia’s wealthiest municipal corporation.

Political battle lines
The BMC polls are expected to witness a direct contest between the ruling Mahayuti alliance comprising the BJP, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP, and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), which includes the Congress, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), and the Sharad Pawar led NCP-SP.

This will be the first BMC election after the 2022 split in the Shiv Sena, significantly raising the political stakes. Additionally, cousins Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray have reunited after nearly two decades and announced that their parties will contest the civic polls together, a move widely seen as a potential game-changer in Mumbai’s political landscape.

Past Results and Voter List Issues
In the 2017 BMC elections, the undivided Shiv Sena emerged as the single largest party with 84 seats, followed closely by the BJP with 82 seats, while the Congress won 31 seats. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) had won seven seats.

Ahead of the polls, voter list verification has emerged as a contentious issue. While the SEC has extended deadlines to allow for corrections, the Shiv Sena (UBT) has launched a parallel verification drive, alleging bogus and duplicate entries and wrongful deletion of long-time residents.

The civic elections are being closely watched as mini assembly polls, particularly in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai, where control of urban civic bodies carries enormous political and financial influence.