Maharashtra Municipal Corporations' Polls on January 15

The State Election Commission of Maharashtra has announced that elections to 29 municipal corporations will be held on January 15, 2026. Counting of votes and announcement of results will happen on January 16. These elections come on the back of close to 300 municipal councils and nagar panchayats having already gone to the polls and whose results are going to be out on December 21.

The corporation elections will have much more impact on the political landscape because it also includes the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the richest in the country responsible for managing the financial capital of India. The Shiv Sena has been consistently controlling it since 1997 in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. But the Sena has since split with Eknath Shinde breaking away taking the party symbol. Uddhav Thackeray, whose faction of the Sena, had a poor showing in the state elections, desperately needs the BMC to maintain political relevance.  Losing it would be akin to Mumbai itself falling as a bastion of his family.

The alliances are now very different from when the last time the BMC elections were held. The BJP, Shinde's Sena and Ajit Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) form the Mahayuti, while Uddhav's Sena, NCP of Sharad Pawar and the Congress make up the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). While BJP is clearly the dominant element of the former because it is both more popular and also wields power at state and centre, the MVA, without a cementing force, has to constantly negotiate to remain allies.

The December 21 results for the other local bodies will tell both blocs where they stand with the voters. Mahayuti sweeping it will be a reaffirmation that the extraordinary victory in the state polls in 2024 was no fluke and the voters are still behind them. If the MVA wins, then it will reinvigorate them and the BMC will be up for grabs.