Mumbai, Dec 2 (PTI) A voter turnout of 47.51 per cent was recorded till 3.30 pm on Tuesday in the first phase elections to 264 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in Maharashtra, with violence, stone pelting and altercation allegedly involving workers of the ruling parties being reported in parts of the state.
Voting, which began at 7.30 am, concluded at 5.30 pm, officials said.
Till 3.30 pm, 47.51 per cent voting was recorded and the final percentage will be available late night, an official of the State Election Commission (SEC) said.
In the elections, a total of 6,042 seats and 264 posts of presidents of both categories of local governing bodies (municipal councils as well as nagar panchayats) were up for grabs. In many places, ruling alliance partners BJP, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP contested against each other.
Shiv Sena and NCP workers clashed in Roha and Mahad in Raigad district, while tension prevailed in Georai town of Beed district when BJP and NCP workers came to blows.
Election officials launched a probe after a video purportedly showed Shiv Sena MLA Santosh Bangar entering a polling booth while a woman was casting her vote during the local bodies election in Hingoli district.
Congress complained of bogus voting in Buldhana.
Two suspected bogus voters were caught at a polling station in Buldhana barely an hour-and-a-half after voting began for the municipal council elections there, the Maharashtra Congress claimed.
A man allegedly attempted to cast a vote in the name of local resident Vaibhav Deshmukh at the Gandhi Primary School polling centre in ward no. 15 of Buldhana. The individual is said to be a resident of Kothali in Motala taluka, the Congress alleged in a statement.
Another person accompanying him was also detained, while Congress functionaries claimed that more individuals from Kothali and Ibrahimpur had been brought to Buldhana city with the intention of casting fraudulent votes.
The Opposition party alleged that Shiv Sena MLA Sanjay Gaikwad was bringing people from rural areas to cast “bogus” votes in the Buldhana Municipal Council elections. However, there was no response yet from the authorities on the allegation.
Counting of votes will be taken up on December 21, as per the directive of the Bombay High Court’s Nagpur bench on Tuesday, after the SEC last week rescheduled elections in 24 local bodies to December 20 due to certain apparent irregularities in the process.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis criticised the postponement of the 24 local body polls and said the SEC had interpreted the law in the wrong way.
He also questioned why counting of votes to 264 local bodies needed to be postponed for 24 local bodies which will vote on December 20.
Fadnavis said in a democracy elected representatives are expected to maintain decorum and protocol.
Maharashtra Minister and senior BJP leader Chandrashekhar Bawankule said “misinterpretation of laws” by the SEC has led to the high court deferring the counting of votes for the local bodies polls to December 21.
“I have been saying that the SEC is misinterpreting laws and postponing elections without any basis,” Bawankule said.
It is not good that political parties put in effort, run campaigns, and then suddenly the Commission postpones polling. It does not present a good picture, he said.
Amid reports of clashes between workers of the Shiv Sena and NCP in Raigad, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said violence has no place in democracy.
All parties, including the members of the ruling coalition, should maintain discipline, said the NCP chief, adding, “Alliance dharma must be honoured by all partners.” “Violence has no place in our democracy,” Pawar said in a post on X.
Describing elections as a “sacred process”, he said every voter must be able to exercise their franchise without fear. “…Let the people decide who they want to elect,” Pawar stated, adding that any attempt to disturb peace or influence voters through force was “against the Constitution and Maharashtra’s values.” Nearly one crore voters were eligible to exercise their franchise in the first round of the multi-tier rural and urban local bodies elections, which, as per the Supreme Court’s directives, are to be concluded by January 31, 2026.
The poll battle became multi-dimensional with the BJP-led Mahayuti and the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) locking horns, interspersed by “friendly fights” among the alliances and subtle bids for one-upmanship between the BJP and Shiv Sena.
The local body polls are being viewed as a major indicator of political sentiment in Maharashtra, a year after the BJP-led Mahayuti won 235 out of the 288 seats in the state assembly elections.
These polls have already witnessed significant political manoeuvring, with the ruling Mahayuti alliance of BJP, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, and Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party facing off against the Opposition MVA of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) and Congress.
The EC has introduced a verification system marking suspected duplicate voters with double stars on lists, requiring strict identity checks at polling stations. It also launched a mobile application providing information about candidates and voters, including affidavits of candidates. PTI MR AW CLS ND ARU GK KRK NP
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