Mumbai

Voting in Maharashtra’s municipal council and nagar panchayat elections recorded a turnout of 35.05% till 1:30 pm on Tuesday, according to the State Election Commission (SEC), as polling continued across 264 urban local bodies.

While the voting process remained largely peaceful, scattered incidents of unrest were reported from Mahad in Raigad, Akot in Akola and Muktainagar in Jalgaon, where rival party workers clashed and accused one another of violating election rules.

A video that surfaced from Hingoli triggered controversy after it apparently showed Shiv Sena MLA Santosh Bangar walking into a polling booth while a woman was casting her vote. Election officials said the matter has been taken up for inquiry.

Polling began at 7:30 am and will go on until 5:30 pm.

Barely ninety minutes into polling in Buldhana, the Maharashtra Congress claimed that two suspected bogus voters were detained at a polling station. One of them allegedly attempted to cast a ballot in the name of a local voter, Vaibhav Deshmukh, at the Gandhi Primary School booth in Ward No. 15.

According to the party, the accused is a resident of Kothali in Motala taluka and had travelled from outside the constituency. The Congress further alleged that more individuals from Kothali and Ibrahimpur had been brought in to vote fraudulently, and accused Shiv Sena MLA Sanjay Gaikwad of orchestrating the move.
Authorities have not yet issued a response to the allegations.

Vote counting will now take place on December 21, following a directive of the Bombay High Court’s Nagpur bench, which came days after the SEC postponed elections in 24 local bodies to December 20 due to irregularities flagged in the electoral process.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis criticised the postponement, saying the SEC had misinterpreted legal provisions while making the decision.

The first phase of the urban local body elections involves 6,042 seats and 264 council president posts, with nearly one crore voters eligible to cast their ballots. As per Supreme Court directions, the entire tiered local body election process must be completed by January 31, 2026.

The political stakes around the polls are high, coming a year after the BJP-led Mahayuti won 235 of 288 seats in the state assembly elections. Though the contest is mainly between the ruling Mahayuti (BJP, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP) and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) (Shiv Sena-UBT, Sharad Pawar’s NCP-SP and Congress), both camps have seen “friendly contests” within their own partners in pockets of the state.

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To curb duplication concerns, the SEC has marked suspected duplicate entries in the voter list with double stars, making strict identity authentication mandatory at polling stations. A mobile app has also been launched to help voters and candidates access information such as candidate affidavits and polling-related details.