By Admin 
Voting for the elections of 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra is to be held on Thursday, January 15, 2025. Most political interest in these elections is focused on Mumbai, where the contest for the power of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the country’s most prosperous municipal body, has become very interesting. In the BMC elections, the Mahayuti alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the front of the Uddhav-Raj Thackeray brothers are face to face.
Voting will be held on January 15 from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm for a total of 2,869 seats in the municipal elections. During this period, 3.48 crore voters will decide the political future of 15,931 candidates. Of these, 1,700 candidates are in the fray from Mumbai alone and 1,166 from Pune. Counting of votes will take place on January 16. More than 25,000 police personnel, including senior officers, have been deployed in Mumbai to maintain law and order during the BMC elections and counting of votes.
These elections of 29 municipal corporations are being held after a gap of more than six years. The tenure of these municipal corporations had ended between 2020 and 2023. The municipal corporations where voting is taking place include Mumbai, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Thane, Nagpur, Nashik, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Navi Mumbai, Vasai-Virar, Kalyan-Dombivli, Mira-Bhayander, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Panvel, Solapur, Amravati, Akola, Kolhapur, Sangli-Miraj-Kupwad, Jalgaon, Dhule, Jalna, Latur, Nanded-Waghala, Parbhani, Chandrapur, Malegaon, Ahilyanagar and Ichalkaranji are included.
The political contest is very tough in 227 wards of BMC. Here BJP is contesting on 137 seats, Shiv Sena on 90 seats and NCP on 94 seats. Shiv Sena (UBT) has fielded 163 candidates, while MNS is in the fray on 52 seats. Congress has fielded 143 candidates and VBA has fielded 46 candidates in Mumbai. Congress has fielded a total of 1,263 candidates in other parts of the state.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has claimed that MNS chief Raj Thackeray will suffer the biggest political loss by forging an alliance with Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray. He termed the coming together of both factions of NCP in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad as only a local level development. Fadnavis also said that Deputy Chief Minister and NCP leader Ajit Pawar had violated the rule of not making statements against each other among the alliance partners.
The Mahayuti alliance, consisting of BJP and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, campaigned extensively across Maharashtra. Political observers say that the NCP, the third component of the alliance, was strategically kept away from the campaign so as to appeal to non-Hindu voters.
This BMC election is the first after the split of Shiv Sena in 2022. In the same year, Eknath Shinde parted ways with most of the party’s MLAs and later got the name and election symbol of the party. Earlier, undivided Shiv Sena had ruled BMC for 25 consecutive years.
Before the elections, a big development came to light in Maharashtra politics when Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray, who had separated two decades ago, came together again with the aim of uniting Marathi voters. At the same time, rival factions of NCP have also formed an alliance in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
This time Congress has adopted a different election strategy in Mumbai. Breaking away from its Mahavikas Aghadi allies Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP), the Congress has formed an alliance with Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi and Rashtriya Samaj Paksha. Congress is contesting alone in Nagpur.
During the campaign, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis along with both Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar held rallies across the state. Whereas Uddhav and Raj Thackeray put their full strength in Mumbai, Thane, Nashik and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. Telangana minister Mohammad Azharuddin, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Tamil Nadu BJP leader K. Annamalai was also included among the star campaigners.
The promises related to women in the manifestos remained at the center of the election debate. Mahayuti has promised to give 50 percent fare concession to women in BEST buses. Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena (UBT)-MNS alliance has assured domestic working women of monthly allowance of Rs 1,500 and waiver of property tax on houses up to 700 square feet. In its manifesto, Congress has given priority to tackling Mumbai’s pollution, upgrading BEST buses and strengthening the financial condition of the city.
The race for the post of Mayor of Mumbai also remained a big issue of the election campaign. BJP claimed that in case of Shiv Sena (UBT) victory, a Muslim can become the mayor. In response to this, Uddhav Thackeray’s party talked about making a Marathi mayor. Chief Minister Fadnavis also assured that the Mayor of Mumbai will be “Hindu and Marathi”.