Voting is underway today across 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra as part of the 2026 civic elections, a process seen as significant for the direction of urban politics in the state. Among these, the election to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is being closely watched, as it is the country’s wealthiest civic body and is going to the polls for the first time since 2017.
Polling is taking place in major cities including Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Nagpur, Navi Mumbai, Thane and Pimpri-Chinchwad, where contests are described as closely fought. The elections are being held for a total of 2,869 seats, with 15,908 candidates in the fray. According to official data, around 3.48 crore voters are eligible to cast their ballots across the state.
The voting process began at 7:30 am and is scheduled to continue until 5:30 pm. The Election Commission has set up 39,092 polling stations to conduct the exercise. Security arrangements have been tightened, with additional police forces deployed in sensitive areas.
Counting of votes will take place on January 16, 2026, and the results are scheduled to be declared the same day.
Most major political parties in Maharashtra are contesting the civic polls. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde are contesting together under the Mahayuti alliance in most municipal corporations. However, in the Pune Municipal Corporation, the Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) is contesting separately after the two parties failed to reach a seat-sharing agreement.
The Shiv Sena led by Uddhav Thackeray and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena are contesting together on issues related to Marathi identity and the “Marathi Manus”. This marks the first time in around two decades that leaders from the two parties, led by members of the Thackeray family, are sharing an electoral platform.
The two factions of the Nationalist Congress Party, led by Ajit Pawar and Sharad Pawar respectively, have reached an understanding in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad to avoid division of votes.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is not only the country’s wealthiest municipal body but also forms the administrative backbone of Mumbai, India’s financial centre. Its annual budget exceeds that of several states, making control of the civic body a key objective for political parties in these elections.
